The Tortured
by Serenity Komoshiro
Summary: What if Itachi had met Sakura sooner? What if he took her under his tainted wings in order to make her stronger? What if in the process, she finds not only power, but love? What if... AU ItaSakuDei
1. Crying

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**Author's note:** I know I shouldn't be starting another fanfiction until I finish the others I have out, but this story was called for. I'm a bit tired of seeing too many Naruto fics where some of the characters are portrayed out of character. So with this fic, I've asked a very good friend Sarehptar to be my beta reader to make sure I have the characters played well. Plus Itachi is her love…and he's mine too! Well, I hope you enjoy this, and please review!

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**The Tortured**  
Chapter 1:  
_Crying_  
By: Serenity Komoshiro  
Beta-read By: Sarehptar

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The night sky was a dark, warm cobalt; a few wisps of day clouds drifted their way mindlessly across the stars over Konohagakure. The village itself seemed still—voices had been drowned out by the delicate breeze through the tree leaves. Atop an electric pole, one young man, whose eyes blazed a deep blood red, watched the still homes below him, silently. A puff of cloud drifted across the wide full moon, casting his starkly pale skin into shadow. Those eyes... Someone had once compared those famous red pupils to the eyes of the Devil himself, and no man could look into them without a shiver of fear. Over them, he indignantly wore the silver head protector of his people, of the ninja who had once been his comrades… 

A gray vest and scar-like black tattoo revealed his truth nature—assassin, of Konoha's ANBU. The eyes of the youth slowly bled from crimson to a deep midnight. A breeze tore at the black strands of hair hanging to his shoulder blades, but he didn't seem to notice. He wouldn't have cared in the slightest, even if the wind caused tangles. His eyes were lifeless, blank and clear, not betraying in the slightest the horrible crime he had just committed.

Soundlessly, as was his nature, the midnight-eyed youth turned away from the moon-drenched red roofs, leaving behind the bleeding bodies of the ones who had held him precious. His aunts, uncles, cousins, mother and father. No one left, no one but _him_….

"_To measure the height of my capacity…"_

He stared silently at the full orange moon before him, and then disappeared into the forest that bordered on his once home. In such a strong ninja village, screams would not be left unattended for long, and as soon as the situation was assessed, an ANBU team would be on his trail.

Itachi began to run through the gnarled trees, thanking years of training for improving his speed and stamina. Within a few minutes he would be on the edge of the village. The leap from branch to branch was effortless, and his mind managed to remain blissfully blank.

A tiny, lilting noise assaulted his ears as he ran. Though his expression did not change, a vague sense of curiosity welled up inside him. Who was _crying_ so far out here? Itachi knew he should have just ignored the distant weeping. He knew he should just have continued toward the border, but…something about this voice... He turned sharply and continued at his breakneck pace toward the source of the noise. The stronger the sound became, the more clearly he felt a tiny, burning chakra signature. Whoever it was so far out here, they were weak… or pretending to be. The chance that it might be a trap filtered through his mind, but he dismissed it. ANBU would not even have been at the scene yet.

His assumptions were correct—the chakra signature was truly weak. There, against the roots of a giant oak, was a tiny girl, slumped over, face in her hands. He stopped a few feet away, unwilling to make his presence known. A quick sweep with Sharingan confirmed what he already expected: they were completely alone. His eyes slid back to their deep black. He ought to leave; there was no time to be wavering here…

Itachi turned to go, to escape the place that had held him captive for so long, when a tiny thought flittered across the back of his mind. _How has she managed to come so far out here if she truly is so weak? Why has she left the village so far behind? Why is she all alone?_ An almost inaudible groan escaped the thirteen year old genius. _Of all the times to remember courtesy…_ He dropped down before her, a little too silently; she did not even look up. He glared (a vague sort of look that might have been anger on someone else's face) starting to become annoyed with her incessant wailing.

"Why are you crying?" he asked sternly, his voice far too low and cold for his age. She acknowledged his presence by jerking slightly, and her crying skipped a sob before continuing unhindered. She couldn't get any words out, or perhaps she chose not to answer.

"I asked you a question girl, why are you crying?" he queried again, loud enough that she couldn't go on ignoring him. With pale green eyes, the girl looked up slowly, and her wan face was stained with tears; the bangs that had been crushed by her small hands were tossed and wet. Her tiny arms were covered with a long white shirt, at least a size too large, and the knees which were pressed into her chin were wrapped in loose red pants. He thought he caught something glinting beside her, but she dropped a hand, blocking his view.

"W-who are you?" she croaked, tears still dripping slowly down her cheeks.

"I won't answer your question until you answer mine…Why are you crying?" The young man did not even try to disguise the note of impatience in his voice. Pink strands of hair wavered out of place as she lowered her face from his and began to speak into her red-clothed knees in a quivering, young voice.

"M-my family….d-disowned me…he said…I-I wasn't s-strong enough…" Despite the muffled, barely audible tone, Itachi's well-trained senses caught her stuttered answer. It was the most inopportune of moments, but he couldn't help but feel the barest bit of interest. If he had ever been as weak as this girl was, would the Uchiha clan have disowned him? He scoffed lightly at the thought, the smallest of dusky 'hnh's escaping his hardly parted lips.

"You remind me of my foolish brother." It was a passing comment, devoid of emotion. The girl didn't look up from her knees; she continued to sniff weakly. Itachi looked more closely—analyzing the figure in front of him as only an ANBU member could: coldly, without any thought beyond discovering hidden secrets. She was small, he gauged her age at roughly eight or nine, which explained her childish behavior. Unlike the Uchiha clan, most ninja families did not expect their protégés to graduate the ninja academy at seven.

"What is your name?" Itachi crouched down beside her, more to facilitate hearing her answer than to seem kind. His angled midnight eyes looked at her, waiting for reply—what he got was something he had not expected. The girl looked up from her knees to glare childishly at him, emerald eyes flashing with not only tears but a strange inner light.

"Y-You didn't answer my question… I won't answer your question 'til you answer my question. Who are you?" Her voice, still wavering with the remainder of tears, was a great deal stronger than before. At first Itachi could not help but feel the slightest frustration. Who was this child to be ordering him around? Who was she to glare at him? She was nothing compared to him! But he controlled the feeling, schooling his mask into its ever-present coldness. At the very least, the girl was a swift learner. He leveled a firm gaze on her, determined emerald and ebony clashing for the first time.

"Uchiha Itachi," he drawled at last, something of a smirk ghosting across his delicate lips. She stared up at him resolutely for a few moments, turning the name over and over in her mind, planning on never forgetting it. There was a reigning silence before she finally managed to offer her own name.

"Sakura… Haruno Sakura…" muttering the name desolately, another silvery tear rolled down her cheek. Was she really a Haruno anymore? Ignoring the silent sob that wracked her form, Itachi noticed again the glimmer she'd hidden from him before. Halfway covered by her over-sized clothing, he could make out the metal etching and blue material of a Konoha Hitai-ate. What could such a weak girl be doing with an official ninja's band?

"Why do you have this?" Itachi asked, his pale and immaculate hand pointing to the head wear. Blinking moist eyes, she shifted enough to pull the material of her shirt off the band. Looking at it, she began to tremble. For a moment, the tiny girl could only stare, tears welling over. Finally, she turned away, and answered his question in a shaking voice that grated on his nerves.

"My father… H-he told me I will never have one. H-he said I'm too weak to be a ninja, so I-I should take a good l-look at his, because I'd n-never get another chance to hold one… I d-didn't mean to! But when he told me to get a-away… I just took it! " She curled in on herself, as if the weight of the exclamations and the actions were too much for her tiny form.

Though he appeared listless, it was not without interest that Itachi listened to her. In less than two minutes, this girl had treated him to a level of complexity he did not expect from anyone as weak as she was, as young as she was. But talking to her without causing a fit of tears was straining, and time consuming. The dark-haired man rose to his feet, blood red Sharingan scanning the area for any encroaching threats. Sakura and he were still alone.

Turning back to look at the tiny girl, Itachi found the tears had finally stopped falling, leaving drying trails on her pale cheeks and redness in her wide eyes. A dark look of hopelessness seemed to settle over her entire form. For a moment, the black-eyed genius simply stared at the pink-haired girl so near to his heels. Finally, with a humorless half-laugh, he turned to the side, pale hands slipping into the pockets of his dark, blood stained ANBU uniform.

"Do you want to become stronger?" It was a rough question, sounding more like an order than anything else. His own eyes dark eyes settled away from her, into the impenetrable wood all around them.

"Yes…" her soft reply was not without conviction. He turned to look at her, still clutching her knees, back to a molding oak tree.

"If you come with me I will make you stronger…but you must strip yourself of all emotion. You are weak because you have no control. The only thing that will be useful to you is hate. You will use that hate to become stronger under my guidance… Can you do that?" Itachi asked, voice once again distant and as sharp as the end of a kunai blade. Sakura rose slowly to her bare feet, turning to look up at him, green eyes wide and unsure. He was offering her a chance to get stronger, to show her parents what she could become… She could show them how wrong it was to disown her… Wouldn't they regret it?

Itachi waited impatiently for an answer, growing more and more aware of the danger of lingering as each second passed. Finally, she gave the barest of nods… and then did something so bold he had not expected it: she rushed into him, wrapping her slender arms around his own thin legs. Tears once again pushed through her attempts to hold them back, and he could feel the chill of the saline water through the black material. For a split-second, his eyes widened in surprise, but the look was gone the moment it was born. Momentarily, he wondered if having her beside him was going to be a terrible mistake. But at the same time, plans for training the girl forced their way into his mind easily, ways to make her a tool, a powerful, manipulated weapon... With a cold glare that illustrated his displeasure with the touch, he deftly pulled out of her reach.

Sakura bowed her head in shame, reproaching herself for showing emotion other than hate. She waited, fidgeting, for Itachi to leave or punish her. Instead the boy reached down to her tiny hands and pulled the shining forehead protector from her. In one movement that Sakura couldn't describe as slow or fast, he drew a kunai and ran it across the pale metal, cleaving the once flawless surface nearly in two. _Betrayer_, the word rang in her mind. Silently, frozen, she watched as he reached up with delicate hands and drew the band from his own forehead. She could not help but shudder at the blankness of his face as he ran the kunai through his own mark of loyalty.

Without a word, he threw Sakura's father's band to her, and she struggled to catch the scarred metal before it slipped from her fingers. A cold breeze that promised rain on the way made the once proud blue fabric of the Hitai-ate dance in time with the leaves above them. She shivered, just once, and them closed her hands over the jagged edges. With determined eyes, she watched Itachi tie his damaged forehead protector back over his brow. She could only wonder, in that moment, why an ANBU member, beloved protector of the village, would mark himself as…

"I-Itachi-sama…" Sakura began, feeling that no other designation fit him but something so high; he was the one about to take her after those of her own blood wanted her gone. With nothing, not even her own name, to call her own, respect was the only way she could repay him. Beautiful eyes blinked once, slowly, in her direction, wordlessly asking what she needed.

"Why did you do…" she wasn't even sure how to ask a question like that, "It's a mark of betrayal to the village!" As unsure as she was, she still managed to keep her voice from trembling. For a moment, he stared through her, inwardly amused at what the scar meant to her.

"We are no longer a part of this village," he stated, bringing his eyes to meet hers directly for the second time that night. In the emerald depths he could read clearly her confusion, her desire for a deeper explanation… But he did not humor that desire.

"Put that on. We're leaving." He simply turned his back, not even bothering to wait for a response. Itachi didn't feel the need to explain his actions to this little girl at the moment—she would be lucky if he ever explained. Behind him, she hurriedly tied the band onto her wide brow, the over-sized ends trailing out of the knot. He walked away with soundless footsteps. Out of the corner of his eyes, Itachi saw the little girl running to catch him. Without warning her in the slightest, he leapt back into the trees, landing without a hint of effort on a wide branch. Sakura followed suit, utilizing the ninja training she had had—it wasn't enough to reach the heights and speed he could, but it was enough to keep him, barely, within her sights.

The wind picked up as the night grew deeper, rustling every leaf and setting Itachi even further on edge. Behind him, he felt Sakura's chakra struggled to keep up, making more noise than he felt appropriate. Neither of them spoke as they made their way, too slowly, towards Konoha's border, and neither of them looked back at the village filled with memories both bitter and sweet.

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	2. Enter Akatsuki

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**Author's Notes:** First off, don't sue me! This is my disclaimer, I really don't own them. Can't you tell? Anyway, this chapter was originally role-played out between my beta-reader and I. Then it took her friggin' forever to beta-read this! Slow as a salted snail, aren't you? Anyway, please enjoy. And note, as this is an AU, I took a little liberty with the Akatsuki team arrangements. You'll see that later on. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and PLEASE review—my beta-reader feeds on them like a leech, and maybe she'll actually manage to update in less than four months if you feed her! (Stab!)

Beta-reader's Notes: I could say I am really sorry and all that jazz… But you all would still be mad about the wait, right? Just think of the length of this chapter as my special treat to you all, a boon for making you wait so long. Serenity has very nicely summed me up: I'm a leech-snail creature. Doubly slow. Please enjoy my hard work!

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**The Tortured**  
Chapter 2:  
_Enter Akatsuki_  
By: Serenity Komoshiro  
Beta-read By: Sarehptar

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It had been two years since that fateful night… Two years since the Uchiha clan fell from its great height in a bloody massacre that already darkened Fire Country's history books. Overshadowed, but not forgotten, the night was marked by some as a double tragedy—it was the night Haruno Sakura disappeared from the world. The fears were obvious ones: the girl had run away from home into a forest plagued by an escaping traitor. That Uchiha Itachi had murdered Haruno Sakura became accepted as fact. _The truth…_

Emerald green eyes peaked out warily from under the matching foliage she had used to conceal herself. She stilled her breathing to inaudible pants, lowering her Chakra to a level that would not only cloak her location but decrease his wariness. She crouched lower, ignoring the pressure of her knee digging into her chest and the sharp branches braced against her arms. Her heart was pounding; she could feel its erratic beat where her thigh met her rib cage. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead. To underestimate him would mean… His back was to her, in far too plain of view. It screamed 'trap!' in a way that made her tremble. This time, she would…

Did Sakura really think she was being secretive? She thought she was so well hidden. He stood motionless, sensing her dampened Chakra. He toyed momentarily with a kunai concealed in his sleeve as he waited patiently for her to make the first move. It came quickly –she never was one to wait– a sudden rustle as she burst free of the undergrowth. She hurled a pair of shuriken at him with deadly accuracy… Accuracy that would have been deadly, had he been anyone other than Uchiha Itachi. She was still too slow; her defeat was about to be handed to her on the end of a blade.

He rounded on her, face betraying none of the power and force behind his movements. With the barest of actions, effortlessly, he raised his hand and brushed aside her weapons with a few careful flicks of his own. Deflected, they struck the surrounding tress with enough force to dig deeply into the bark. _Calm down! Calm down!_ She cursed herself mentally, throwing her body sideways in case he decided to answer her volley with another. The corners of Itachi's lips had turned up in the barest of triumphant smirks. She fell back into the foliage again, refusing to present him with a completely obvious target.

It made little difference—with deft hands he peppered the brush with kunai, striking… nothing. She was getting faster. Suddenly, he felt her Chakra bloom behind him, and he spun in time to block her sharp strike. Her eyes bore into his, green pools burning with desperate determination and a fear she was trying and failing to hide. Her emotions would spell her defeat.

"Bunshin Bakuha," the words slid dark and heavy over his lips. With a shimmer of haze, three clones crowded the clearing, menace apparent on their faces.

"Kuso!" She bit her lip, knowing the danger she had left herself open to. One clone charged forward, kunai bared and glinting in the morning sun. If she did not react… Automatically her hands flew into the necessary seals. "Kawarimi no jutsu!" Just as the throwing blade suck into her flesh, an explosion of smoke exposed the body to be nothing but a log. With the real Itachi in her sight, she leapt clear of the trees again, prepared to end the battle for good. She could feel the warm shock of Chakra burning through her system…

Itachi spun, crimson of the Sharingan pooling into his eyes, and with movements more natural than her own, he systematically followed her hand seals. _That cheat! Damn him!_ She hissed in frustration as they simultaneously lifted fingers to their lips.

"Katon, Ryuuka no jutsu!" they called together, and he could not help but enjoy the way their voices sounded together, ragged as an animalistic howl…The streams of flame cut off their words, and the dragons of fire spiraled after each other, high through the trees, snapping and roaring. Neither managed to strike their targets, and he had already begun to battle in the shimmering heat of their wake. One of the spare clones drove the pink-haired ninja back, their weapons locked and fighting for dominance. From where he stood calmly across the clearing, he could hear her chastising herself for letting her guard down, for not thinking every step through.

The clone finally forced aside her kunai and bought his own up to her throat. Sakura gasped at the sudden cold pressure, and a single drop of blood rolled down the dark metal. _This is…_ Her father flashed sharply before her eyes, grin cold and wry.

_Don't you want to be strong Sakura, don't you want to make me proud?_

"I'm bleeding…" Her voice was the whisper of a tiny girl again.

_Why can't you dodge it Sakura? It was slow enough! Why can't you block it Sakura?.! You're weak! Get stronger—I won't let you disgrace our name. Block it! THROW IT BACK!_

"I-I can't!" She felt her feet crumble under her, she knew she was falling… Fear of what was not in front of her made her weak. Desperately, she tried to catch herself, stepping backward clumsily, she only managed to jam her heel in a mossy log, tripping across the rough bark and earning herself a dirty scrape. The explosive clone halted its movements, glaring at her fallen form with a look that was half intrigue and half disapproval. Without allowing her any time to move, he detonated his double. The force of the explosion seared on her legs, and clumps of grass shrapnel would surely leave bruises where they'd glanced across her pale skin.

Silently, she laid on the ground for a few moments, recounting every mistake she had made during their battle. _If only I had…_

"Damn it!" He could hear the dejection in her voice and in her movements as she slammed her hand into the earth. She did not need to feel so defeated. He was a genius even by Konoha, strongest of the ninja nations, standards. He was capable of destroying one of the greatest and most renowned clans in the world—that she could not best him was not surprising.

But the fact that he now needed more than one body to hold back her attacks, now needed the Sharingan to predict her movements was a testament to how far she had already come. She had a memory that rivaled his own, a clear head in battle that kept her on par with his motion for longer than he ever believed possible. More still, even though she was a girl, she was strong and well-built. He knew that if she continued to extend herself, her brute strength would quickly surpass his own. She was slower than she should have been, but her natural affinity for genjutsu and her adaptability made it easy for him to teach her techniques he had long amassed for his own private use. She was in many ways the perfect student, a living weapon.

She climbed angrily to her feet, kicking the log that had scraped her. Her head hung low, unable to meet the gaze he leveled at her from across the hollow. She had failed, again, to put a scratch or land a punch on him. Bowed in on herself, she almost missed him crossing to stand before her. The sudden light pressure she felt through her scarred headband startled her, and she looked up at his fingers, poking her forehead through the jagged metal plate marking her forgotten allegiance.

"We're done for now," he murmured. For a moment she could only listen to his voice, the voice of the boy who had rescued her so long ago from the dark prison of her family, from that village that had allowed her to suffer… She dusted off the last flecks of dirt from her skirt.

"Hai Itachi-sama." He let the other clones, who had been standing around idly, dissolve, and he turned his back to her. The sun had barely risen and it was already blazing hot. Half from habit and half from the lingering perfection that plagued him, Itachi reached up easily to run a hand through his ponytail, breaking down the knots that formed during their training. The ends were ragged, long overdue for cutting.

Sakura watched the strong rays of the sun glint on his black strands, brilliant and flawlessly ordered. With his midnight eyes half closed in concentration there was no other way to describe him but beautiful, and for a second Sakura felt her cheeks growing warm with a faint blush. She bit her lip hurriedly and forced it down. Handsome or not, Uchiha Itachi was still a missing-nin and a ninja of incredible strength—he would not appreciate her acting silly over something like looks. Still, while her mind thought, her body seemed to move on its own, taking small but steady steps in his direction.

Satisfied that tangles weren't marring his normally managed image, he lowered his hand and was about leave the charred clearing when he suddenly felt a soft hand run the ends of his hair. He spun around, instinctively searching for the first weapon he could reach. He did not raise the shuriken, knowing full well who the touch belonged to. With a guilty smile, Sakura pulled her hands back and bowed her head sheepishly. With an almost silent 'hmph!' he turned back and began to walk away—but not before he'd throw his hair over his shoulder. He didn't need her hands all over him…

"So this is the legendary Uchiha Itachi," the gruff voice sounded from all around them at once, ringing through the trees like a gravelly bell. Itachi stopped shortly, but did not bother looking up from the forest floor. With highly trained senses he pinpointed the intruder in seconds. Interesting… Whoever was behind the voice had an immense amount of Chakra. Sakura seemed to have sensed it too, because she inched closer to him, until her back was almost pressed to his, and together they both slowly drew kunai.

Whoever the voice belonged to, he had picked the wrong pair of ninja to try and intimidate. _Who is this and how does he know Itachi-sama?_ Sakura tensed from any attack that might come. Like fog, the already clean air shimmered and faded away, inviting in the source of the Chakra they could both feel pressing down. Sakura gasped as he came into view, and even Itachi was unsettled, though it barely showed. How could this thing be walking on two legs? She could hardly believe what she was seeing—was it a man or a shark? She swore she'd seen a similar monster in Konoha's Oceanarium once. Her eyes ran along his headband, which also bore a scar. _He's from the Mist._

"What the hell are you?" The question slipped utterly unbidden from her lips, but she did not regret asking. The shark man frowned visibly, black and white eyes narrowing in dislike. How dare such a little brat question him so rudely! He was the infamous Hoshigaki Kisame, one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist!

"I'm a missing-nin from Kirigakure, can't you see that you stupid girl?" He turned to look at her dark-haired companion with a calculating glare. "Uchiha Itachi, you have proven yourself powerful enough to attract our leader's attention. I have come here to invite you to join the most powerful organization in all the nations—Akatsuki. Will you join of your own accord," his blue-gray lips split in a sneer, revealing impossibly sharp teeth, "or will I have to convince you?"

Sakura should have kept herself quiet, but this man irked Itachi too. What organization searched out convicts? Strongest in all the nations… _Have to convince you?_ Was this shark ninja threatening him? He could feel the power of the Sharingan starting to well up, and stepped toward the man—he would test this nuke-nin, and then consider his proposal.

Sakura grinned dangerously at his side, that glinting look in her emerald eyes that promised violence. This man was ignoring her as if she was completely insignificant. Being treated like she was nothing was something the pink-haired girl could not stand, whether or not it was the world's ugliest man ignoring her. She felt Itachi's Chakra beginning to rise, and she instantly knew what he was planning to do.

"Wait Itachi-sama, let me fight him." She stared intently up at her teacher with a look that begged indulgence. Why should Itachi dirty his hands with this man? Even if she could not win, she wanted to try. She wanted to be of use to him somehow—he was the only one who had bothered to teach her, to make her strong…

"Fine," he mused. Why shouldn't she try? It would be the perfect opportunity to see how she stood up to other high level ninja, as opposed to the weaklings she'd defeated for their mercenary pay. How much had two years of intense training changed her? And if this strange ninja was too much for his little companion, what would it matter? Of course, if he disliked the man's methods he would interfere—but not to save her. Certainly she didn't mean that much.

As if she had not been waiting for permission at all, Sakura took a firm step forward. She couldn't help but mentally joke that perhaps the intruder used his looks more than his skills to frighten his enemies into submission. Kisame growled in frustration at the sudden challenge, but if the girl had a death wish, so be it. His Chakra swelled, and Sakura began to plan her attack.

Itachi stepped back, leaning disinterestedly against a tree, pale arms crossed in front of him. This should prove to be decent battle, at the least. His pink-haired companion slipped into a defensive stance, leaf-green eyes narrowed and determined, watching the wrapped weapon Kisame pulled off his back. He unwrapped it quickly, and for a moment Sakura wanted to laugh: it looked like a porcupine, not a sword. Remembering that all things were not what they appeared, she forced herself to take him more seriously.

"What are you waiting for girl?" He leveled his spiny blade in her direction, eyes daring her to make a move. Without lifting her glare from him, she snapped out, flinging three shuriken as speedily as she could. "Too slow!" He deflected them just as Itachi had earlier, a smug look shining on his face. Balancing his weapon, his hands flew into a series of seals. She had to move! Using the forest to her advantage, she leapt into the high tree branches, just as he shouted out his attack.

"Suiton, Umi no Dangan!" A series of watery projectiles sped in her direction. _Kuso! He's using water vapor in the air!_ The water ripped through the tree's limbs below her, sharpening and only gaining speed. An idea flashed in her mind and her fingers tore through a row of seals. Leaping clear of the tree, she turning to face the chasing liquid bullets.

"Katon, Housenka no jutsu!" Fireballs blazed through the fingers she had lifted to her mouth, flying straight to strike each of the approaching water bombs—where each clashed, steam rose thick and heavy, filling their battlefield with an impenetrable mist. Kisame grinned greedily, pleased she had managed to evade at least one attack. But the mist was his element, and no little girl was going to best him. Behind, he felt a source of Chakra, and from the shadowy fog, he saw a body running straight at him. He spun quickly to face Sakura, kunai glinting in the half light. He swung Samehada furiously, but when the jagged edge made contact with her form, the body went up in a puff of smoke. A decoy, and he'd fallen for it! Another body exploded from the steam, tossing a volley of kunai directly at his face. With less success than before, he brushed them off.

Just how many copies had she made? A third form came hurling toward him. Expecting it, he swung his sword across the copy and spun, ready for the next Bunshin. The ripping sound and following gasp of pain stunned him, and looked back to see Sakura bleeding and holding Samehada free of her scraped side. _That one was real!_ She struck out visciously, ignoring the pain, and stabbed her kunai into his extended shoulder. _Impressive!_ Kisame smirked, _But not enough._ Samehada rippled to life, eager for more of the blood spilled across its skin.

"It's all over now, little girl." Sakura tried to leap back but felt her Chakra slowly draining away. Confusion momentarily lanced through her, until it struck home—the sword! The sword was devouring her Chakra! She pulled away from it desperately, but Kisame reached out one rough hand, and as if she was a rag doll, he ripped her forward and then away, sending her slamming into a tree with force that stole her breath. With a wicked, fanged grin, he advanced on her, peeling sword pointed toward her heart. She felt rage pulse through her, determination reawakening her muscles. She wasn't going to fail!

With striking speed, she flipped, using what Chakra remained to glue her feet to the tree trunk. Steadily striding, she raced up the oak to its highest limb. Kisame glared up at her, watching her retreat with wary eyes. When she threw herself into the open air high above her opponent, Itachi's dark gaze narrowed in recognition. _That attack…_ She turned over once, descending like a bullet, and then at the last second, changed directions with a twist and landed on a low branch across the hollow. With experienced eyes, Kisame followed her movements until something else caught his gaze.

"Paper?" Hundreds of tiny petals fell like snow around him, drifting on the half breeze. Sakura smiled ferally, green irises alight with pleasure even as she held the wound in her side.

"Ame no Sakura," she murmured. Kisame turned his furious gaze on her again, and noticed the victory evident in her smirk. "Katsu!" Simultaneously the miniature explosive tags erupted in flame from the ground to where she'd thrown them, high in the canopy. The Mist nin, cursing and shielding his eyes, was engulfed in the hail of dirt and smoke.

Itachi allowed the faintest of smirks to slip onto his face, having been on the receiving end of Sakura's favorite attack more than once. This 'Kisame' was definitely interesting, but Sakura's intelligence had proven superior. If she did not always simply accept defeat when they trained, she would probably be even stronger… Kisame emerged from the smoke burnt and cut, still physically in decent shape but nursing a severely wounded ego.

"You little bitch!" He waved Samehada threateningly. "I'll kick your ass!" As if his presence alone could halt the battle, the Mist ninja fell nervously silent when Itachi shifted and stood from leaning on the tree.

"What is this 'Akatsuki'?" he queried, purposefully sharp and aloof. Dusting off the blasting powder and ash left by Sakura's attack, Kisame grinned sharkishly down on the Uchiha, one of the most promising killers in years.

"Shouting our aims to an undefended forest and-" he snarled as Sakura returned to her place at Itachi's side, "an unintended audience is a mistake only an idiot would make." Itachi nodded reluctantly, observing that Kisame was at least experienced enough not to spill information like blood. "But I can tell you what we offer," the smirk and pointed white teeth grew only more apparent, "power." The word alone was enough to turn Sakura's head, to attract more of Itachi's attention. She suddenly thought that instead of the fish, Kisame was playing angler, and like trophy prizes, they were the ones being reeled in. "If you are interested, I can take you to meet our leader in a more guarded area."

There was a double danger in the offer that set her teeth on edge. If they agreed and went to this place, it could easily turn out to be a trap—and though the pain of the wound she had already bandaged was slight, it was enough to impair her. If this was a trick, and they ended up battling their way out, she wouldn't be able to keep up for long—she'd hinder Itachi, the one thing she had promised never to do… And worse, if Itachi refused to join after seeing their operation and knowing their plans, they surely wouldn't be allowed to just walk away. Yet they could not afford to ignore Hoshigaki Kisame's offer: Konoha's ANBU had been on and off their trail for months, and even approaching cities was becoming difficult. They needed a place to base themselves, or they were going to have to move half way across the world to escape their reputations. Sakura sighed quietly to herself. If it did prove a trap, Itachi could just as easily retreat from the situation.

With a grin that was half relief and half triumph, the shark ninja began to wrap his weapon again. A flourish returned it to its locked position across his back.

"_You_ can come Itachi, but the girl can't." Indignant rage burnt through her, and without even thinking Sakura's hand darted like a bird, raining the ground near the offending Akatsuki member's purple painted toes with an explosive tag on the end of her kunai. He dodged and bristled with renewed fury. "You stupid—" He looked ready to tear her limb from limb, but an even glance from Itachi closed his mouth.

"Keep your whore on her leash Uchiha," he huffed finally, not about to be deprived the last word. She growled loudly in return, intent on throwing more than just another kunai at him. How dare he imply—the very thought made her cheeks grow hot. She belonged to Itachi, but not… She bit her lip again, beyond frustrated. How dare that freak just waltz up and treat her like dirt! For a moment she was ready to go at him again, despite the slowly fading throb in her side.

"This 'little girl' managed to stand your equal in combat. If you are worthy of this Akatsuki organization, it would follow that she is as well." Kisame balked at the words, unsure. Uchiha Itachi hadn't spent two years training her to leave her somewhere in the woods. "If the battle had continued, she may have defeated you." Sakura had the strange habit of becoming only more sharp and determined after sustaining injury, where other ninja would have faltered. "Perhaps she has proven herself more worthy than you." Sakura smiled weakly in relief. Itachi was not going to leave her for some new challenge… If he had chosen to go without her? She would have followed his orders, even if it meant being left utterly alone… again. "Let him live for now Sakura." With a sigh that rung with exaggerated disappointment and subtle happiness, she put away the shuriken she'd aimed at the Mist ninja's blue-gray face.

Kisame glared at the pair of them, knowing when he had been boxed into a corner. Itachi wouldn't follow without the girl, and she wasn't choosing to take a step away from his side. _Damn…_

"Fine," he growled, "but she'll probably die. Little _whores_," he ground the word into her like a blade, "shouldn't try to play with the ninja."

"Itachi-sama…" she forced her voice to remain even and pleasant, "if he calls me that again, I can't guarantee I won't harm him." Though his face hardly showed it, she could tell the entire affair amused him. Kisame was far from amused however, hearing her completely undisguised proclamation with disgust. He'd pay her back for making him look foolish… later. Right now he had his orders, and that meant playing nice.

Swiftly they followed the felon ninja through the forest, jumping so rapidly from branch to branch that few eyes could have followed. Both of the men's longer legs made it difficult for Sakura to keep up—but experience had taught her long ago how to match her Master's pace. If she stopped half as often as they did, the bare seconds they paused to make another leap kept her even with them. Of course it meant her push-offs from branches had to be twice as strong and controlled, something she had been working at for years. The longer she ran, the more the muscles she'd toiled to build up screamed in rebellion, but one look at Kisame's face, mouth set in a grim line of concentration, spurred her to push even harder against the next tree limb. _I'm not going to look weak!_

The kunoichi was so focused on maintaining her pace the force of her foot against the wood shattered a branch like a toothpick. It hung onto the tree by one fresh strip, irreparably splintered. Sakura bounded on without noticing it, but Itachi observed the destruction with interest. _Without any Chakra at all._ Kisame and he had both used the same branch rather brutally, putting all their weight on the firm branch—but with just the pressure of her kick, Sakura had destroyed it. It was a show of brute strength that intrigued him.

By nightfall, they'd crossed the border into River Country and approached the Akatsuki main base. At first glance, the bouldered area appeared devoid of life, but when Kisame bore his Chakra and a complicated wave, a man slithered out of the darkness to greet them—slither was the optimum word, Sakura couldn't help but think, because the ninja exuded a serpentine air that pressed sharply. For a moment, when his hooded yellow eyes met hers, she could hardly breathe, hardly move… and then the feeling was gone. But, she trembled, it plagued her, and everything about the snake-like man ground and set her nerves on edge.

Kisame also seemed unsettled by the stranger: he grit his pointed teeth and offered a completely false sounding greeting.

"Konban wa Orochimaru-san." The respectful suffix was grudging, and the Mist ninja made no effort to disguise it. If the black-haired stranger minded, his crooked, predatory smile did not show it. He was not wearing a headband, and that fact alone irked her further—it was as if he wanted to make himself more mysterious. Observing his comrade's still apparent burns with a cursory slitted eye, the snake man's smile slipped into a displeased scowl.

"The order was to retrieve Uchiha Itachi. Just Uchiha Itachi." Sakura felt his heavy gaze again and forced herself to look disinterested.

"She wouldn't leave," Kisame justified with a sulky growl. Orochimaru lowered himself to look at her eye to eye. Sakura felt like a mouse, firmly pinned with terror that had no source.

"Cute." A pink tongue darted serpent-like across the older ninja's pale lips. Shocked out of her paralysis by revolt, she took a quick, jerking step back. Sakura caught her cringe and turned it into a firm glare.

"Why are you interested in Itachi-sama?" she snarled, not caring in the slightest how her loud voice might hurt his ears, close as they were. Her pink bangs slid along her cheeks and she maintained her stare directly into the eyes of a murderer, directly into the heart of an organization she knew nothing about… He straightened, offering a smile that echoed a sneer.

"A curious canary invites the adder in." Her hand itched to pull a kunai on him, but loyalty to what both of them could gain stayed her hand. "Itachi-kun," Orochimaru angled a condescending gaze onto the shorter Konoha ninja, "keep your little pet quiet. Her chirping is going to get her killed." At her sides Sakura's fists clenched visciously. She wasn't Uchiha Itachi's whore or pet. She was his student… But those words did not seem right in her head. She was his companion.

"A feminine man like you would probably know a lot about being someone's pet, ne?" A matter-of-fact smirk sparkled all the way through her emerald eyes.

"Hold your insults Sakura," Itachi upbraided her, but she could tell from the lightened tone of his voice that she'd amused him. It was exceedingly rare to hear, and a warm pride swept through her momentarily. No one else had ever managed to amuse him the way she did.

He glanced at her sudden out of place smile from the corners of his dark eyes. She nodded to acknowledge his previous order, but she hardly needed to. They both knew she would follow any command without question—what else could she do? There was nowhere else for her to go now… Even if this 'Akatsuki' organization's aims were not conducive to their cause, he thought, they could hear why Missing ninja were gathering… And of the very least, if this was not a trap, they could spend the night inside. Clouds were rolling in, and the idea of sleeping another night in a wet and muddy forest was not appealing. Sakura, he could see, was also thinking along the same lines, because she had looked away from all of them and was staring pointedly at the broad stone before them.

"Why don't we move inside?" As if he had read their minds Orochimaru gestured with one pale head toward the seal marking the stone face. With a precise flick and certain pooling of Chakra in his hand, the seal glowed briefly, illuminating for the first time the silver and red ring adorning his finger. _Sora…_ Itachi flied the kanji away for observation's sake. Suddenly, soundlessly the solid boulder before them split in two, opening a hole into the darkness.

The front hall was enormous and empty, ringed by jagged cave walls and pockets of shadow that seemed to shift the moment she tried to focus her eyes firmly on them. Without doubt, most of the activity of this place went on below ground, though she was certain the semi-regular shaped rock formation she had seen a few steps back was actually an ascending staircase.

"If you will be so compliant," Orochimaru chuckled as if that statement was ironic, "I'll escort you to our leader." The unspoken message was that there, and only there, would Akatsuki's purpose be revealed.

"Eh!" Kisame, still sore from his injury at Sakura's hands, growled, "leave _her_ out here! She doesn't need to know anything." Sakura bristled, and then remembering her promise, let it slide.

"Sakura—" Itachi began.

"Hai, I'll wait. I don't wanna know what that shark's got to say anyway." But she did, very much, and they both knew it. It wasn't wisest to split up on potentially enemy territory, Itachi assessed, but they were unlikely to allow her, and unwanted visitor already, into their confidence. She could defend herself well enough to escape if it came to a fight… Feeling suddenly unsettled, strange in a way he had never experienced, he followed the cloaked men across the darkened cave, and through another sliding boulder doorway. The rock slammed shut behind him with an echoing grate.

The pink haired kunoichi ran a reassuring hand over her own bare arm. The cave was cold and damp, and goosebumps had risen all over her skin. As the last echoes of her Master's departure died out, a sharp pang of loneliness tugged physically at her stomach. It had been years since he had purposely ordered her away from him, and now, for some vague promise of power, he had separated from her as if she meant nothing at all. Maybe she didn't… Outside, a few sudden taps and then an immediate distant pounding heralded the start of the rain. The beat it made against the heavy stone far above her was calming, and for a moment, she could almost forget he was not standing, silently, beside her.

-))—((-

Itachi matched Kisame's and Orochimaru's pace as they wound their way, soundlessly, down a sharp spiral staircase. Torches blazed on the walls, but their light seemed to fail to illuminate the path. The steps remained seeped in a bloody red darkness. Neither Akatsuki member offered him a word, even when they reached an ornate wooden door. The seal on this one shone with barely restrained destructive power, and Itachi knew that whatever was behind those doors, they did not want any outsider knowing.

With redolent power he had not needed to open the upper doors, Orochimaru deactivated the seal. As if by its own accord, the mahogany door swung open. Oil lamps, too low to be of much use, glinted as they reflected each other's pale lights. In the hazy orange gloom, a thick table shone, polished, with a chair at either end. At the head of the table, a man was already seated. It was impossible to discern his features well, for his high collar covered much of his face, which he had rested on his knit knuckles.

"So you have come, Uchiha Itachi." His words sounded as if he was smiling, and immediately something about him irritated Itachi—the evident condescendence was backed by pure, unadulterated power, a raw strength that explained without any questions why he could command such a powerful group of ninja.

"We," he used the term in a manner that suggested he was speaking not only about his organization but about himself, "are a selective group of missing ninja. Our only goals," he straightened, and Itachi could see the amusement in his strange, light eyes. "are to amass as much power for our own purposes as we can, and to survive." If the cloak had not ridden so high, Itachi was sure he would have seen a malicious grin on the man's heavily shadowed face. "We want to _test the limits of our capacity_." The words rung sharply on his ears, echoing a bloodier night. How could this man have known what he had said to Sasuke, and only to Sasuke?

"Actually, Uchiha Itachi, Akatsuki is almost a haven." But somehow the way he used that word suggested everything but refuge. "With so much ability under one name, no hunter force alone could hope to strike us. A missing ninja's paradise." There was a cold and forceful ring to everything he said, knowledge of exactly how dangerous he was shimmered in his shrewdly narrowed eyes.

"In fact, you really can't afford to refuse me, can you? Konoha has spread a reward for your corpse to every country, even civilian territory. It's no longer safe to be you. Undoubtedly, you're having trouble finding any sort of decent work in a ninja village, and pardon me," he did not sound as if he was being respectful in any manner, "but I doubt any Uchiha would fall low enough to steal or beg." Itachi grit his teeth invisibly, reining in the pocket of fury that pushed up inside him at this stranger's disregard.

"And of course, if you were to choose to decline our offer, I have a feeling your encounters with ANBU would increase exponentially." So that was it, was it? Blackmail—join now or we'll leak your whereabouts to every hunter-nin we can find. The sheer audacity and wit set his blood racing. These were not your everyday felons. This was not some band of fools. "Joining… would be in your best interest." The mockery ran under his skin like shards of wood, but the power that rang in that voice…

_To test the height of my capacity._

With smooth motion, the leader flicked one hand, almost carelessly. Itachi had already pulled a shuriken to block this unexpected attack, but it was unnecessary—the Akatsuki leader's weapon landed, with a sharp crack, in the table, inches from Itachi's edge. A dark kunai glittered where it had buried in the wood before him, and at its half hidden tip, a silver ring shone in the dancing oil fires. _Shu_, crimson. The irony was effortless. Silence rang in the room, and he knew exactly what question was being asked, and what he should answer.

With a deft hand, he reached out and ripped the kunai free. Slowly, purposefully, he closed his pale fingers over the cold silver band.

-))—((-

The grating echo of a stone door opening jerked Sakura from her pacing, and she spun swiftly on her heel.

"Itachi-sama!" She brightened quickly and crossed the room to reach him. It had felt like an eternity… Without even speaking, the distant and analytical look in his eyes told her immediately that he had accepted their offer. He always looked that stormy after an important decision—as if he was weighing and predicting all possible outcomes or alternative choices. The rain only pounded continuously on.

"It's late Itachi-kun. There's a room for you upstairs." Orochimaru's civility sent shivers down Sakura's back. Kisame leered suddenly in her direction as if something had just occurred to him.

"Only one room. And one bed. Not that your whore'll mind." A blush raged across her cheeks like fire, half from indignation and half from insinuation. For one moment, she was determined to rip his throat out for his disrespect, but Orochimaru's dry chuckle stopped her from leaping at the Mist ninja.

"Little girl, there will be a room for you downstairs. Deidara will enjoy the company." Something about the snake's dark grin was not reassuring. She turned her green eyes from one man to the other, but her glare did not change. 'Little girl' wasn't much higher on her list than 'whore'. There were only four years between she and Itachi, and no one treated him like a little boy! He didn't treat her like a child; it hardly seemed right for anyone else to.

"My _name_ is Sakura," she could not help but mulishly state. Ignoring her, Orochimaru pointed out a staircase to the lower floors (not the same one they had vanished down earlier, she noted) and then waved her away like a servant. When Itachi's steady black gaze told her to comply, she grudgingly began a slow wander across the cave. Watching over her shoulder, she saw Kisame lead Itachi in the opposite direction. Orochimaru disappeared on his own, presumably to return to guarding, but something about the transportation jutsu he used told her he had not gone just outside at all…

The hallway after the staircase was really too dark to be comfortable, and the entire place had a chill that even rainy nights in the woods had not had.

"Hello!" Startled, Sakura jerked, hands at the ready, searching for the source of the sudden voice. "Up here, un!" She glanced quickly upward and came almost nose to nose with a blonde-haired… girl? "Who are you?" the blond asked from its suspended position on the ceiling, and her (or was it his?) voice sounded a little less friendly than it had a moment before.

"Haruno Sakura." She tried to bow politely, but couldn't force herself to do it. This stranger was undoubtedly applying Chakra to her (or was it his?) feet to be able to stand above her.

"I'm Deidara, un." Why did the blond keep saying 'un'? It was actually pretty annoying… "Are you new?" The upside-down angled blue eyes peered at her with undisguised curiosity and distrust.

"I came with Uchiha Itachi." She tried, and failed, to keep the pride out of her voice. At the name, she was suddenly much more welcome—she could tell by the way the Stone ninja relaxed visibly, showing that she was no longer regarded as a threat. Had she (or he?) thought Sakura was an intruder? "That Orochimaru guy said there was a room down here that no one was staying in."

"Well, yeah…" The Akatsuki member dropped off the ceiling neatly and smiled at her—instead of being warm, there was a vicious edge to it that did not entirely calm her. "It's connected to my room, un." She pointed down the hall a ways. "Come with me!" Sakura followed, relaxing slowly. At least one of the Akatsuki members was decent… The pair of doors were plain but strong wood, and Deidara stopped at the one closer to the stairs.

"This one's got no one in it, un…" But somehow the way that was said did not make the room sound empty at all. With a flourish, the blond pushed the door and gestured her in with an open hand. Sakura gasped immediately: not at the room, but at the extended hand. There was a mouth, complete with teeth, in the palm!

"Ummm, your hand…" Sakura blinked widely as Deidara flexed her fingers and the small mouth moved in response.

"Like it? I use them for my techniques, un!" The pink-haired ninja tried to smile in return, pretending she wasn't severely disturbed. "You can go inside you know." Sheepishly, Sakura turned and trotted into the room, only to stop short and gasp again—it was packed floor to ceiling with beautiful sculptures. Wide-eyed, she picked a wary way through them all, stopping every few seconds to inspect something else.

"Is this Kisame?" Sakura glared at the life-sized replica of her least favorite new acquaintance. "You actually managed to make him look good!" Deidara's face fell like she (or was it he?) had been hit over the head with a blunt, heavy object.

"I was trying for ugly and something went wrong, un." Sakura couldn't help but laugh, and the artist grinned. "So you like art, un?"

"Of course!" She nodded in answer, though she had had little chance to see much famous art. _What kind of techniques does Deidara really use?_ Her curiosity was divided however, as her eyes searched the room. There was no furniture at all, and there was definitely not a bed anywhere among the sculptures. There wasn't even room to squeeze in a tiny bed roll! There was no way she'd be able to stay in this room… As if reading her mind, Deidara picked a way through the statues and opened a door to the adjoining room.

"My room, un." It looked far more livable. Sparsely furnished with a mirrored bureau, a bed half swallowed in fluff pillows and a few odd tables, it had an organized air to it that didn't suit what she had seen so far of Deidara's dynamic personality. A quick scan of the room proved there was no extra futon.

"I get the floor, right?" She asked, trying not to impose on the only person who'd been pleasant to her all night.

"We can share the bed, un!" The blond grinned in a manner that was all together too innocent.

"Um, all right…" This was a girl, after all, wasn't it? And the bed was big. Sakura smiled cheerfully. Deidara and she could become friends, couldn't they? She hadn't had a girl friend for ages… Stifling a yawn, she dropped her tired body onto the side of the bed nearest to the door, mindfully watching her scraped side.

"We should go to sleep now, tomorrow is a training day." That voice couldn't have sounded any more displeased. Sakura was in the process of climbing under the covers when Deidara, who had wandered into a big closet across the room came back out wearing a night shirt that was… decidedly not baggy.

"Uh, Deidara… You _are_ a girl, aren't you?" She eyes the clingy shirt with growing horror, as without the cloak the blond looked considerably broader and flatter.

"A girl? Of course not, un!" He plopped onto the free side of the bed, and in the same motion, shut off the already dark room's only lamp. Like a terrified child, Sakura crept on her fingers and toes as far away as she could. _Itachi-sama!_ she screamed mentally, s_ave me!_ Oh gods, this was not… She twitched uncomfortably under the covers, eyes darting between the door and her sudden bedmate, who looked like he was already asleep. How was she ever going to be able to close her eyes now?.!

She'd never slept in the same bed as a boy before, though she wasn't sure Deidara really counted as a boy… With Itachi, they had always slept on opposite sides of the fire, taking turns staying up as guard. Even when they'd managed to get a room at an inn, there were always two futons. Suddenly, endearing little snores rent the uncomfortable silence. Oh joy, now she'd really never be able to get to sleep! But she was so tired… The fighting and running had really worn her out. But she couldn't go to sleep… She couldn't… Sleep…

She dreamt of her father. She dreamt of how she had always failed him—and then she dreamt of Itachi, and how she had never failed to match his expectations of her. Why was it that with him she could do things she never thought possible? Why was it that with him… But more still, her dreams threw back one of the questions she had always been too afraid to ask him. Why was Uchiha Itachi a missing ninja? Why? It had never seemed important to know what he had done wrong. He was her savior. He was… It had never seemed important to know, but now it was bothering her. What could he have done to attract the attention of a felon organization, to merit all those ANBU following them? Now that he had joined Akatsuki, were things going to change? Were they not going to be together any more? He dreams were fretful, but the unconscious Deidara didn't seem to notice.

-))—((-

His room, as Kisame announced it would be, was large but relatively lifeless. A single bed, a dresser, and a tall cabinet in the corner, not much else. As the shark-faced man turned around and headed down the hall, Itachi sat stiffly on the clean blankets. The room felt… cold. Logically that made no sense. An insulated room was certainly more enclosed than a forest… He pulled back the thick comforter and climbed underneath, but even the warming blankets felt unwelcoming. What was different?

He realized it immediately. She was missing. The last two years they had traveled half the world in almost constant contact. Was it that he felt strange without her? Was that the coldness of the room, not being able to measure the soft breaths he'd been listening to for years? He tried to shut his eyes, but the place was simply too new, too unsure. He did not trust these Akatsuki ninja in the slightest. The night wore on, fretful for both of them.

-))—((-

Morning came slowly, yet quickly, and her heavy eyelids fluttered open to the harsh light of an electric bulb. Day or night? There were no windows to judge the time by. Groggily, she pushed herself upright. _Thank god,_ she couldn't help but think, _Deidara sleeps like a statue himself._ He hadn't moved an inch for all her tossing and turning. His morals were also admirable. She wondered how many other teenagers like him would have managed to keep to themselves all night. Blinking to clear her gaze, she realized her bedmate wasn't still asleep—in fact, she couldn't see him anywhere!

"Ohayou!" Deidara's cheerful voice called out, and Sakura leapt so far in surprise that she fell right off the edge of the mattress she'd been hugging all night. Peering up over the bedside, she found the girly-boy peering out of his closet, big black cloak half tugged on. "You're just in time, un! Training starts in five minutes."

"Five minutes?.!" Sakura leapt up from her scattered position on the floor. "But… ugh…" She felt totally run down, her hair felt like a rat's nest, and when was the last time she'd bathed? "My clothes..." A tear along the side where she'd let herself got injured by Kisame seemed far more apparent today than it had yesterday, and there were dirt spots all over her skirt and shorts.

"Wear these, un!" Deidara tossed her some of his clothes, including a well worn dark cloak, splashed by red clouds, exactly like the one he'd finally managed to pull on. "It's the standard uniform. I helped with the design, un!" The artist boy seemed very proud of himself. "Now hurry, my partner doesn't like it when I'm late."

Collecting the bundle of garments she was sure were going to be far too big, she stumbled into the adjoining 'art' room for enough privacy to change. A sweeping look made her shiver, and though it was only a statue, she stepped out of the Kisame sculpture's eye line. Giggling at herself, she undressed swiftly, taking the barest moment to remove the bandages on her injury. It had scabbed over nicely and would be gone in days.

The navy undershirt he'd given her was too large, but it was very comfortable. The black pants were, shockingly enough, not all that baggy, and that thought made her cringe. _Maybe I should go on a diet?_ Then again, Deidara was unnaturally delicate for a boy… Absentmindedly, she ran her fingers through the shoulder-length pink strands that had become viciously tangled during the night. With maybe a minute to spare, she hurried back to their room, snatched her forehead protector and tied it in place.

"You look normal now," her new comrade offered, and then looked utterly confused when she sent him a glare. Together they traversed the dark hallway, midnight cloaks swishing in time with their steps.

"Deidara, who do you train with? Is there a set pattern?"

"There are only ten of us all together, counting Uchiha-san, and we all work in pairs. Everyone has a partner except Kisame, and you're expected to train with your partner."

"But if you always train with the same person, you'll only be able to improve as long as they do." It was a problem she and Itachi had never had to worry about: with his Sharingan he had such a repertoire of skills there was always something different for her to learn.

"That's part of the idea, un. You need to know everything about your partner: strengths, weaknesses, secrets… If you know where he fails, you can work on that yourself and—"

"Form an invincible team."

"Un!" Her intelligence of partnership obviously impressed him. Taking care not to step on their hems, the pair ascended the dark spiral staircase to the bleak entrance hall. She followed him across the cave-like room to another invisible door in the back wall. His odd mouth and hand reached to deactivate the seal tag, but stopped as he turned to watch the second floor staircase on the other side of the hall.

Sakura followed his gaze, and her emerald green eyes widened in surprise. Itachi was coming down the stairs, swath in the same black cloak. But it looked as if he was born to wear it—the crimson and black, the way it pooled around him… It was… She felt her cheeks growing red again, _Damn it!_ and quickly turned her glance to the floor. When she thought it had abated enough not to embarrass him, she looked up again, only to spot Kisame following her companion. If anything could have chased the blush away, it was him.

With a pleasant but quiet 'Thank you', she walked away from Deidara, resolutely taking her place by Itachi's side. The tension of the night slid off quickly, replaced by the comfort of familiarity. She didn't need words to greet him—she could tell by just the tiniest lessening of his stiffness that he was also more comfortable with her there than with the strangers. Deidara watched her go, a little sad to lose her company, but also very interested in meeting her companion, the Uchiha Itachi. The rumors about him had been absolutely wild… The dark-haired ninja accepted Sakura's presence at his side without moving an inch, and together the pair, discounting Kisame (who looked put out) moved purposefully back to where Deidara stood before the door.

"Nice to meet you, un." The stone-ninja smiled invitingly, and was a bit disappointed when all Itachi did was spare a short glance in his direction.

"Itachi-sama, this is Deidara-kun. He's my roommate." Somehow Sakura's introduction seemed to have gained a lot more of Itachi's attention than the artist's own had. _Nothing happened!_ She tried to send the thought to her already bristling teacher, but he seemed to have picked that exact moment to stop reading minds.

"He?" Itachi's deep black eyes met Deidara's light ones in a typical intimidating Uchiha glare.

"We're late for training, un!" Deidara shivered a little, and opened the sealed door with a sudden urgency. Eyes like that were enough to make the Stone ninja want to protect Sakura from anything that could possibly harm her—if Itachi glared at him just for being her roommate, the poor artist certainly didn't want to know what would happen if he let something bad happen to her… "This is the training grounds, un."

Sakura saw the pointed glare Itachi was burning into Deidara's back, and pitying her bedmate, she tugged gently on her Konoha's companion's cloak, pulling his eyes from their new acquaintance.

"Itachi-sama, let's train now, please? I would like to finish yesterday's battle with the shark idiot." From where he stood, a ways off from their strange group, Kisame definitely heard her—he began hurling insults like shuriken in her direction.

Emerald green eyes narrowed shortly, and Sakura could not help but think that for a missing ninja, Kisame seemed to have almost as big a mouth as Chakra supply. There was no way she was going to let him land another blow on her. The ragged scab on her side was a one time mistake. Together, they passed through the doorway. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the bright sunlight of the river country. Strangers turned to stare with wary and curious eyes, and she knew just what they were thinking. How could she possibly look serious, tripping on the hem of the too long cloak? A shiver ran down her spine as Orochimaru leveled amused golden eyes in her direction.

"Oi, thick-head! Shut your mouth before I fill it with kunai!" She smirked over her shoulder at Kisame, who had not stopped his colorful commentary. "Were your burns yesterday not enough of a lesson?" A man with what appeared to have a Venus Flytrap growing around his face narrowed bright eyes in interest. Could it possibly be true that this small girl had actually injured Kisame? The Mist ninja snatched Samehada and stiffly marched into the middle of the field.

She would not be able to approach this battle like the last one—there were no trees to provide shelter here. Best bet was close combat, to discourage him from using ninjutsu. But she'd have to steer clear of that chakra-eating sword, or she'd be out of the fight in seconds. A smile darted across her face quickly. They all thought her an immature little girl didn't they? Why not play along… Without a word or move, she began to gather Chakra in her feet. She offered a girlish giggle and batted long eyelashes in her opponent's direction.

"Aw, what's the matter Kisame-baka? Too stupid to know which end of the weapon to use?" He growled in rage and swung the sword almost too fast for her to see—she had been prepared, and with a push that left craters in the earth, she flipped over his head in a smooth arc, smiling innocently as she tugged hard on his toss about blue hair. _Impressive,_ she snarled to herself, _I didn't think it was possible to use the word 'whore' so many times in one sentence._

It was not an easy matter for her maintain a continuous flow of Chakra to her legs as well as working quick fire ninjutsu between dodging. She only had so much stamina… A childish wave and taunt hide her shaking hands and panting. If she did not find a way to end it soon, their battle would stretch on—with Kisame as the victor.

A smirk darted across her lips as she inspected her opponent. He was sporting several new burns, and his cloak was riddled with scorch holes. His face and back bled from a few swallow cuts where she had thrown kunai instead of flames. But she was not without injury either: he'd fooled her once with Kawarimi and she'd ended up with a kunai in between her shoulder blades. It was a shallow stab, not enough to leave a scar, but it, and the still fresh scrape along her side throbbed painfully. Could she end it _that_ way? She had just enough Chakra left…

With a determined glint in her eyes, Sakura leapt clear of Samehada and farther above him than she had before. The breeze ripped at her pink locks. Hand seals flashed impossibly quickly through her fingers.

"Ninpou, Uragiri no Gensou!" She fell back toward the earth swiftly, just as Kisame felt something penetrate his body, and stumbled to a stop. Sakura landed roughly before him and straightened. The second he moved to continue their fight, a heavy mist roiled upward from the grass and hid everything from view. Kisame could barely see Sakura, standing less than two meters from him. _What?_ He glared. She could not possibly be hoping to hide from him in the mist, could she? It was his element… The shark ninja jerked in shock as bodies began to move through the fog. They approached silently but ominously, until he could make out their features… The Akatsuki members! He tensed in surprise, disliking the intent to kill obvious in their eyes. Just what technique had she used!

"Oi, what the hell are you all doing?" the shark-ninja hissed. Itachi raised a kunai without word. Deidara, Orochimaru and the others slipped into offensive stances.

"Do you see my power?" Sakura's voice rang hateful and blood-thirsty through the fog. "They're all under my control, and they'll betray you now, fool." Beside the snake ninja, Itachi smirked.

Kisame raised his sword, ready to defend himself against the betrayers—but Orochimaru's voice drifted, dark and amused, to his ear. The call was not coming from the kunai armed snake ninja nearest to him…

Standing off the field, Orochimaru had been watching their battle with intrigue. As soon as the mist had risen, he had realized what Sakura had done. She'd dropped a genjutsu on her opponent with the appearance of casting a mist cloud.

"Uragiri no Gensou… A genjutsu that manipulates the victim into believing they are being attacked by their most precious comrades." Uchiha Itachi's disinterested voice struck a chord among the members, and Deidara whistled appreciatively.

"I could use that one, un." Itachi did not bother to tell him it took someone with a significant gift for genjutsu to manage it. It had been a strange coincidence that Sakura was naturally good at Illusion Skill—and that her precise Chakra control made it possible for her manipulate fire jutsu when her natural element was earth. She seemed almost to have been made to learn from him.

"Sakura-chan, you may stop now. Kisame-kun has been very well trained." She did not miss the dry chuckle in Orochimaru's voice. The Akatsuki doubles puffed out of existence at her command, and the mist drifted swiftly into nothingness. The smug expression was far slower to leave her face, and when she tripped again on the hem of her loaned cloak, not one of the Akatsuki members laughed. She crossed the wide field as quickly as she could, determined to return to her master's side. Had she done well? From him, she could not expect praise, but surely she had made him at least a bit proud…

As if she had no other place than next to him, Itachi watched her return. That he did not mind her presence bothered him, but little could be done. It felt almost safer to have her there—there was no other ninja he would rather have at his back in a battle. The other members were eyeing her warily, gauging her as more of an equal. He could almost read the unspoken question in their eyes. _Who is she?_ Sakura bounced on the balls of her feet, grinning up at him expectantly. She always wanted to be acknowledged… Typical to them both, he reached out two of his fingers and poked her in the forehead.

"Tighten your form," he murmured, and her grin grew brighter. The others blinked in confusion, but she knew that was Itachi's way of telling her she had done well. With a hand, she rubbed the fading mark his hand had left, noting that she did indeed need to tighten up—letting Kisame hit her with the kunai had been utterly foolish, and her back ached, though the wound was slowly closing off. She was almost tempted to stick her tongue out at Kisame, but was interrupted by Deidara, who came scurrying over with a grin as bright as her own in place.

"Sugoi Sakura-chan! Did you see that look on Kisame's face, un?" She couldn't help but laugh at Deidara's imitation of abject terror. "Come with me. I want you to meet my partner, un!" She blinked at him in confusion. He really wanted her to interrupt their normal training? For a moment, she was torn. It was easy to like Deidara, and she really did want to know more about his technique. But leaving Itachi was also unappealing. She knew he still distrusted this place, and wasn't he supposed to be her teacher? She should stay and train with him… She looked up at Itachi, asking her opinion without needing to say a word.

The look he gave her was unexpected. His eyes, which she had become so good at reading, were telling her to go. They needed to establish ties with these people, learn their secrets, find out if they could be trusted… It made sense, she reasoned. Deidara was her roommate, and she needed to get along with him, if no one else here.

"Hai Itachi-sama," she acknowledged the unspoken command and turned. Deidara had retreated a few steps from her imposing companion. She hurried to reach him. "I'll come Deidara-kun." The girly blond boy nodded, his long hair dancing in the breeze, and they walked together. She was determined—she was going to make friends with this deadly missing-nin if it was last thing she did!

Itachi turned his dark eyes from her after she'd reached the artist Akatsuki member, and he turned back to Orochimaru, who was telling the Venus Flytrap man that he had somewhere to be and would not be able to train with them.

"Kisame-kun, are you up for testing your new partner?" The serpent-like ninja gestured to Itachi. Across the field, Kisame grinned viciously.

"I'm still full of Chakra." Itachi could have laughed. If Sakura could dodge the shark's attacks, there would be no way for him to land a blow on an Uchiha. Somewhere across the training yard, Sakura laughed and Itachi had to resist the urge to look in her direction. Was that feminine boy really so entertaining?

-))—((-

The pink-haired ninja followed Deidara's quick pace, and could not stifle a laugh as he described his partner.

"He's such a grouch, un! And he has absolutely **no** concept of art! I don't think he'd recognize good taste if it hurled shuriken at him, un. He thinks he's so knowledgeable… He's from the Sand village, and his sense of humor _is_ as dry as a desert!" Somehow, even though all he did was complain, Sakura got the impression that Deidara liked his partner quite a bit. She loss interest in his chatter quickly, but the blond still held her interest—how did Deidara use those mouths in his hands for ninjutsu? Itachi had taught her many techniques, but nothing like that. And Deidara's bright nature seemed very out of place in a gang of mass murderers…

She shook her head to clear the thought. Ninja could not be judged on appearance or nature. She was a good example of that: a cute young girl with a kind disposition, which hid a kunoichi capable of killing or torturing anyone in her way. Perhaps Deidara was even more skilled at hiding his true nature than she or Itachi—could he hide bloodlust behind a smile? Deidara grinned, an action that if she looked hard enough, seemed false and dark.

"This is my partner, Sasori-danna." Sakura's wide emerald eyes blinked, and her eyelid twitched. _Danna? Only wives use 'Danna' nowadays Deidara!_ Sasori nodded a bandana-covered face in her direction, completely unphased by Deidara's suffix. _They couldn't possibly be…_ She hid the twitch and forced a smile onto her face.

"Deidara-kun, can I see your techniques?" she asked, keeping all the confusion out of her voice.

"Watch Sakura-chan, I'll show you the power of art, un!" The strange Akatsuki member pulled a chunk of clay out of his cloak sleeve and Sakura watched intently as he allowed the mouth in his left palm to devour it. With a quick squeeze, the clay was coughed back out, this time in the form of a tiny clay bird. _A sculpture? What's that going to do?_

The blond ninja raced through a series of hand seals, and in a sudden blaze of dust and Chakra, the little bird became a giant flapping beast. Quickly, Deidara leapt onto its back, and with one sweep of its massive wings, the eagle took off, bearing its rider high into the sky.

"Wow!" Sakura followed its impossibly fast flight as well as she could.

"He's showing off," the strangely hunched man, Sasori, growled. She noted that his voice sounded like a sandstorm, dry and sharp, but not in an unpleasant way.

"Look out, un!" The mouths in Deidara's hands dropped another two bundles of clay shaped like tiny, strange dolls. The pair of clay figures came plummeting toward the ground, and Sasori growled again.

"Back up." Sakura complied with a quick leap, and the figurines smashed into the earth with an explosion the size of a bomb tag.

"Nice Deidara-kun!" So that was his power: he could manipulate clay and infuse it with his Chakra, making the birds fly and the bombs explode. That was pretty impressive, she had to admit. But she would probably not be able to learn from him—that power looked like a Kekkai Genkai to her. _Shame,_ she couldn't help but think, _it would be really useful to make bombs like that…_

She turned her head and saw Kisame and Itachi training against each other. She could see the red glint of Sharingan even so far away. There was no way Kisame would even come close to her Master. She wanted suddenly to be fighting beside him, and the unusual distance between them felt like miles. For a moment she caught herself wishing they had never come to this place, had never had to stop their private training routine… Deidara dropped out of the sky with a pleased look in his eye, blocking her view, and as if they were trained to do it, Sasori started barking insults at him.

_Art,_ she sighed to herself, t_wo notorious murderers arguing about art._

-))—((-

**Serenity and Sareh Say:** Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews you sent us! We're very sorry that we kept you all waiting, but we hope that you enjoyed this chapter enough that you'll want to review again! (Remember, reviews make the world go—okay, okay, they just REALLY make us all bubbly and happy!)

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	3. Paradise Lost

-))—((-

**Author's Notes:** Well...I wanted to get this chapter out by Christmas (as a gift) but... hee hee, with college and working and all my family drama going on, it took me longer to write the chapter than I expected. Still, Sareh is the slower of the two of us. (Sareh says: Not this time!) The future chapters will probably take just a little bit longer than it normally takes me write, because of my college work load and my jobs. I now have two jobs and I'm trying to take care of my ailing mother, who has quite a few severe health problems. Hopefully the next chapter will come out quicker, but until then please… be a patient, and... um... don't eat my beta-reader alive! I really, really like how this chapter came out, and yet again, I don't own the characters or profit from writing this fanfiction.

Beta-Reader's Notes: IT WAS NOT MY FAULT THIS TIME! First, Serenity was **slow** getting me the chapter, and then when she finally did get it to me, she'd rushed through it (because I was threatening her, XD) and skipped a bunch of important parts. So I had to fight to get those parts figured out with her and we spent weeks debating over changes to the storyline and where she wanted the story to go as opposed to where I thought it was going. We're all good now, trust me, you're going to love what's coming up! PS: this chapter is LONG, my treat! Enjoy!

_OH MY GOD, WE BROKE 100 REVIEWS! You guys can't imagine how happy you've made us! **Please, please continue to review.** Knowing that there are people out there who enjoy our story is what keeps us working! Last chapter, we had 66 reviews. If we can break 66 reviews for this chapter, we'll be so overwhelmed with happiness. Please feed Sareh's review-obsession!_

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**The Tortured**  
Chapter 3:  
_Paradise Lost_  
By: Serenity Komoshiro  
Beta-read By: Sarehptar

-))—((-

Warm breath—Sakura became aware of that delicate feeling across her bare shoulder before she recognized anything else. Pain was next, a dull throb throughout her whole body. For a long moment she refused to open her eyes. If she did not open them, then it would most certainly not be morning, not be another conditioning day, not be time to rise and strain herself to the point of unconsciousness. She felt suddenly uncomfortably warm: the thick quilt seemed oppressive and clingy and Deidara's lips were hot where they brushed the bare skin of her shoulder. He was mumbling incoherently in his sleep.

"Neeee Sasori-danna, I wanna go to the matsu…. matsuri, unnn…" Huffing furiously, she ripped open her fatigued emerald eyes and threw back the covers.

"Dammit, stay on _your_ side of the bed!" That was all the warning Deidara was given before Sakura shoved him bodily off the mattress. The blond artist landed in a heap, blinking sleepy blue eyes.

"Ohayou Sakura-chan," he yawned and stretched exuberantly, slowly working stiff muscles. The kunoichi could tell he was sore as she was—every movement brought a visible wince to his normally smiling face.

"Ohayo—" she began, and then a dark thought (_We've_ _got one hell of a day ahead of us…_) clipped the words short. Wearily, she swung herself off the bed and crossed the room. A calendar coated with sumi-e paintings, Deidara's choice, hung precariously from a loose nail in the solid rock wall. She marked another blue 'X', and sighed. _Has it really only been a week?_

It felt like ages since they had first met Kisame in the woods—ages since she had met Deidara and his gruff partner. The black and crimson of their uniforms had become more than a standard: it now seemed strange to see the ninja without them. The pink-haired kunoichi grimaced as she ran her fingers over her own cloak. She has taken in the hem herself, and had done a barely decent job. The red thread stitches were slightly uneven and loose in places. It didn't matter, she forcefully reminded herself—she'd grow fast enough to take the hem out again soon.

"I'm going to take the bathroom first, un!" The Iwa ninja pulled himself stiffly to his feet and wandered out into the hall. Watching him go, Sakura could not entirely stifle a sigh. Of all the strange members in Akatsuki, Deidara was probably the least comprehensible. He did not seem particularly interested in gaining power, or immortality (a vision of Orochimaru sent a shudder down her spine), just in destruction. She could not stop herself from wondering what crime had scarred his headband. Wasn't unstoppable killing ability desired in most ninja villages? A frown creased her normally gentle face sharply, and a lingering trace of unease rolled in her stomach. If there was one thing she did not like, it was not _knowing_. And Deidara, just like so many of the other Akatsuki members, seemed to be nothing but layers and layers of mysteries.

_He's worse than the others_, she couldn't help but think. _They're all readable, to some degree… But Deidara…_A hand, and a mouth, waved through the open door frame.

"Are you changing Sakura-chan? 'Cause I really don't want to get hit again, un…"

"I'm finished," she muttered, and was answered by Deidara's blond hair and blue eyes bounding around the frame. A white smile followed just behind. _Deidara hides behind a grin all the time—you can never really tell what he's thinking._ She strapped her thigh pouch on with measured movements, watching him from the corner of her eye as he collected the day's kunai and clay. He smiled again at her, visible eye half-closed in what might have been joy, but could just as easily have been malicious intent. He, she suddenly and uncomfortably realized, might just be the most dangerous of them all.

-))—((-

"Ohayou Itachi-sama!" She crossed the entrance hall quickly to join her master, a bit of bitterness welling in her throat and straining the words. She had seen so little of him in the past few days—he had been training almost constantly with Kisame, learning to adapt to a new ninja at his back… There was no place for her in his Akatsuki partnership, and as she watched the pair walk, steps silent and flawlessly corresponding, a flicker of worry pressed in her chest. Would there still be a place for her in his life?

"Ohayou," the dark-haired ninja murmured in return, sparing only a nod in Deidara's direction as a greeting. Kisame glared at them over the top of Itachi's dark head.

"Ohayou, fish," she smirked, green eyes dancing with visible mirth and insult.

"Good morning to you too, whore."

Deidara sighed in exasperation, Itachi shook his head, and both of the shorter men continued onto the training grounds, already used to the necessary morning bickering.

"I'm going to rip your pointy teeth out and feed them to you one by one!"

"I'm going to skin you alive and use your hide like a rug!"

Sakura lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sudden sunlight, and swiftly surveyed the fields. Hidan and Kakuzu were far to the right, running through a vicious volley of moves. She hadn't spoken much with either of them—Deidara had been rather testy when she'd asked. The shorter of the pair was apparently very religious, though she couldn't imagine what sort of religion a murderer would practice. Deidara had already joined his partner on the other extreme of the field, and she could see them arguing, even from the distance. Kisame sauntered past the pink-haired kunoichi, Samehada brushing none too gently against her shoulder.

She watched as Itachi stiffened visibly, Sharingan blazing to life in his eyes. A kunai in his hand glinted in the sunlight. They began their strict regime, fighting against and beside each other. There were fewer and fewer openings in their defense, she could see. They made far fewer mistakes in their teamwork today than the days before. The niggling sense of uselessness tugged at the back of her mind, and Sakura felt suddenly more alone than she had in years. Itachi was getting stronger without her. He was fighting without her—and worse, their separation did not seem to bother him at all.

"Your loyalty is admirable."

"But your skills will wane if you sit watching." The two distinct voices rang behind her, and Sakura spun on her heel, hand reaching for a kunai before she could convince her body the man was not a threat. At least, he might not be a threat.

"Zetsu-san, is Orochimaru-san gone again today?" The black and white-skinned man nodded disinterestedly, fly-trap rustling. "He's disobeying the leader's orders."

"He is not a man who enjoys following others," the black-half muttered.

"I do not think his increasing absences will go unnoticed," the white-half murmured. Sakura was still a bit unsettled by the grass ninja, whose duality and shape were alien.

"Will you spar with me today, Zetsu-san?" The man nodded again, and a tiny bit of the worry faded from her head. She wasn't fully a member of Akatsuki, but that did not mean that she was not strong. She could still make her teacher proud; she could still be his tool. For the moment, she had been set aside—but at any moment, he might need to wield her again. She had to stay sharp, become sharper… to cut down everyone in his path.

-))—((-

Itachi threw himself forward again, running along the length of the Samehada as Kisame swung it brutally in his direction. He could feel the soles of his sandals snagging on the rough surface, but paid them little heed. Kisame shoved backward to avoid the end of his smaller partner's kunai. From the corner of his red eye, Itachi caught Sakura speaking with the Grass ninja. He unconsciously dodged a water jutsu from his Mist partner and sent a volley of kunai in answer. She had a disconcerted look on her face, and for a moment, a flicker of unease lit in the Sharingan user. He sent an explosive tag toward Samehada without thinking.

He did not trust that man, Zetsu. There was something distinctly ominous about him, something that had nothing to do with the plant that grew impossibly from his shoulders. The Grass ninja seemed exceptionally sneaky—more than once, Itachi had observed him sliding in and out of the earth: soundless and malevolent. Worse still, the black and white-skinned man was partners with Orochimaru. If there was one person in this organization that Itachi disliked, it was that serpent. Orochimaru had been the stuff of legends long before the Sharingan user's birth; he had been the antagonist in ninja academy storybooks, the most malicious face in the ANBU's bingo book.

Seeing the snake ninja in person had not been reassuring. There was something distasteful just behind those hooded eyes. Orochimaru was not, and would never be, a trustworthy ally. Itachi's scowl darkened as he sent a pair of Bunshin to ward off the sideways swipe of Kisame's sword. For reasons he could not explain, seeing Sakura with the snake ninja's partner was unsettling.

"Itachi-san," Kisame growled, leaning on the hilt of his weapon, "could you at least pretend to pay attention to this fight?" The Uchiha pulled his Sharingan away from Sakura, who was crossing to an open place on the field, Zetsu not far behind.

"Perhaps if you were not such a mediocre shinobi, your attacks would hold my attention." He tucked an errant strand of hair behind his ear again and the shark ninja let out a gruff laugh.

"You're going to be missing a few limbs if you keep underestimating me." Samehada rippled, and Itachi could almost feel the sword's bloodlust. As much as the midnight-haired man disliked admitting it, Kisame was correct. His attention had been torn for most of their sparring matches. It had prevented their teamwork from advancing, and though the Uchiha had determined to focus, Sakura's absence was a jarring note at the back of his mind.

"Katon Housenka no jutsu!" Kisame leapt out of the fireballs' path almost too late, and the edge of his robe smoldered.

"That's a little more like it." A predatory glint lit in the taller ninja's pointed smirk.

A bitter taste lingered in Itachi's mouth, and he knew it was not from the fire. That the pink-haired kunoichi could distract him so much was inexplicable and dangerous. Still, he grit his teeth and repelled another heavy blow from Samehada, their lack of contact in the past few days was almost unacceptable: she had been solely his to influence and shape until this point, and the sudden intrusion of new techniques and disciplines she was picking up from the others was not under his control. He could no longer enforce his own methods and standards on her; it was as if Akatsuki had given him an immense power, and stolen away the last piece of his property—a piece whose value even he was not sure of.

It was hard not to look over his shoulder when an explosion from her direction rocked the fields. _That Stone ninja has been teaching her to make bombs._ Itachi struck visciously at Kisame's leering face, and in his head, the thoughts turned sour. If things stayed this way, Sakura would become someone he could not recognize.

-))—((-

"Is hand-to-hand only all right with you, Zetsu-san?" She looked back over her shoulder as the plant ninja followed her onto the field.

"Fine," he answered flatly, removing a curved throwing knife from the folds of his sleeve. Sakura closed her fingers around a set of shuriken and dropped into an offensive stance.

"Let's begin!" Sakura rushed forward, close behind the volley of her shuriken, evading the Grass ninja's first strike and throwing a fierce punch toward his face. With a "clack" the Venus fly-trap shut tightly, protecting his head from the force of her blow. She leapt back quickly to avoid the kunai-parry from his other hand.

"Hey, that plant counts as an unfair advantage!"

"Grow one of your own," the black side muttered. She struggled to keep her eyes on him through her laughter—however odd the grass ninja was, he had a dry sense of humor that was refreshing after having spent so long with such a serious teacher.

"Somehow, I don't think it'd suit me." She flicked a pair of senbon his direction and was not at all surprised to see him bat them away as easily as swatting flies. "You're not going to go easy, are you Zetsu-san?" His yellow eyes narrowed in interest as she lifted the hem of her robe and opened the small pouch strapped tightly around her thigh. "I wasn't going to use these, because it's not really safe but," she grinned maliciously, "I'm sure you'll survive."

The kunai glinted quiescently in the sunlight and porcelain charms, bound with red strings to the finger loops, wavered in the light breeze. "I asked Sasori-san to help me with these. They're coated in one of his new poisons." She twirled one lazily around her index finger. "Try not to get hit, okay? I'm not sure if Sasori-san's got the antidote on hand."

The grass ninja grunted and slid into a sharper form than she had seen him use before. His saffron eyes narrowed, black and white brows creased deeply. She tightened her hold on the knives, both sets of knuckles white with the pressure, and waited for his attack.

It came almost too quickly for her to parry. _Damn, he was really holding back! _He was faster than Kisame, but not Itachi, and they fell into a rapid series of strikes and blocks. Sakura was soon regretting choosing hand-to-hand combat. He was twice her size and weight, and it became harder with each blow to force his kunai away. More than once, she failed to throw the blows completely aside, and shallow cuts marred her arms.

_An opening!_ She dove beneath his strike and pushed her body upward, landing a heavy kick to his chest. The kunai grazed her ear, but Zetsu was thrown back onto the grass. She followed the momentum of the blow through, launching the poisoned knives toward her opponent.

They struck deeply—tips buried in the earth on either of his sides. The red and black material of his cloak strained against the blades, cutting jagged holes.

"Zetsu-san," she straightened and whipped a bead of blood off her forehead, "I've been watching Deidara-kun very closely. His abilities stem from a Kekkei Genkai right? I'm not that gifted unfortunately." The grass ninja surveyed her warily before climbing to his feet, leaving long tears in the edges of his cloak. "But I was thinking, there's not much difference between clay and paper. In fact," she smiled, "with decent Chakra control, almost anything could be made into an explosive tag." The porcelain charms bound to the kunai glinted dully in the morning light, and Zetsu jerked in acknowledgement, a second too late.

Dual bright explosions rocked the field simultaneously, sending clumps of grass and dirt in every direction. When the blast had subsided, she lowered the sleeve of her cloak from her eyes and peered into the dissipating smoke. _There's no way a good ninja like Zetsu-san would have gotten hurt by that!_ The haze cleared and Sakura sucked a sharp breath through her teeth.

Zetsu was gone, without a trace.

_Where is he hiding? Left, right? _She ripped shuriken free of her weapons holster, emerald eyes narrowing nervously. _He has to be—_the ground buckled beneath her feet, and Sakura had only enough time to catch a glimpse of gaping fly-trap jaws.

-))—((-

Itachi and Kisame froze in the middle of their sparring as a macabre scream rent the air.

"Sakura."

-))—((-

There was no pain, she realized. A slight sensation of floating, a delicate pressure across her ribs… no pain. _That bastard Zetsu ate me…_

"Maaahh, Sakura-chan, didn't you know Zetsu-san could do that, un?" _Deidara?_ "And you two really made a mess of the field." She cracked open a green eye nervously, and wasn't sure whether to laugh from relief or scold her own stupidity. She wasn't dead, and she hadn't been eaten—though she had come close. The force around her sides was Deidara's hands, holding her a few inches above Zetsu's fly-trap, which was now closed in what would have been a deadly snap. The grass ninja himself was caught halfway in and out of the earth by Deidara's foot, perched none too lightly on his shoulder.

"Sakura-chan, call this match quits and come play a game with me, un." There was something predatory in the blond's smirk, and in the low purr of his voice.

"Uh, okay. Could you put me down first though?" The stone ninja set her to the side, and Zetsu slid free of the ground with the rustle of his fly-trap.

"Thank you for the match Zetsu-san… I'm sorry I tried to blow you up." She smiled sheepishly up at him. He nodded curtly and strode away. "That wasn't very nice," she grumbled to her roommate when the plant shinobi was gone, "he didn't apologize for trying to eat me!" The pink-haired girl blinked once, a sudden shock glancing across her face. "He wouldn't _really_ have eaten me, right?"

"Well," the artist laughed wryly, "you never know with him, un."

A light footstep caught her attention, and Sakura spun on her heel to meet solemn black eyes.

"Itachi-sama, is something wrong?" Deidara had stiffened at her side, and as the boys traded looks (a sharp glare in the blond's case), Sakura felt awkward and left out. "Uh, Itachi-sama?"

"Nothing is wrong," he offered, but there was a colder edge to it than normal. She could see the tension in his eyes and in his rigid hands. _What's really the matter?_ She sighed softly. _Why won't you ever tell me how you really feel, Itachi-sama?_

"Well then, I'm going to go… play a game… with Deidara-kun. Is that all right, Itachi-sama?" She was sure she saw something like rage flicker in his eyes, for the barest of seconds, but he said nothing.

"Oi, Uchiha, get your ass back here, I wasn't done kicking it!" Kisame growled from across the field, shattering the pressure of their silence.

"Come on Sakura-chan!" Deidara tugged her away by the sleeve before she had a chance to protest. Sakura could feel the heavy weight of Sharingan eyes on her back as she trudged away.

-))—((-

"What sort of game did you have in mind, Deidara-kun?"

"Well, it's really more training than a game, un," the Iwa-shinobi admitted as he pulled a length of black cloth from his sleeve, "but I still can't get the others to play with me. I think they just don't trust me, un." The artist's chuckle was strangely cold, and some niggling sense of worry lit in the back of her throat.

"What are the rules of your game Deidara-kun?" He slid behind her and before she could even hope to stop him, warm hands pressed the cloth across her eyes. Blackness invaded her sight and crushed against her eyelashes uncomfortably. He bound a tight knot at the back of her head, and reluctantly Sakura shut her eyes. His voice slithered over her ear in a malevolent whisper.

"The rules are simple: I hide, and you seek."

-))—((-

"_Ino-chan! Ino-chan! I'm going to hide now, and you have to come find me!"_

"_Forehead girl!" The blond girl scowled, pale blue eyes alight with brash determination. "You're going to lose so fast!"_

"_No way!" Pink strands of hair ghosted across her cheeks, curved in a brilliant smile, "I'm definitely going to win!"_

-))—((-

"Are you serious? You… want to play Hide and Seek? Don't you think we're a litt—"

"This isn't that ordinary old game, un!" His voice sounded vaguely scandalized, "this is Hide and Seek shinobi-style! The blindfold prevents you using your eyes un, so you'll have to navigate and detect your opponent using your other senses. And the person who hides is allowed to move as far away from the seeker as they like."

_It's a perception-building exercise! I'll have to rely on sensing his Chakra and hearing his movements… But if he runs through the trees, there's no way I'd be able to catch up to him without my eyes!_

"There's no 'safe', un. And instead of using hands to tag, we use kunai." He slid one of the short knives into her hand. "You'll have won the round when you can draw one drop of blood from me, un. Then we'll switch places!"

"But what if I hit you too hard and really hurt you?"

"You think you can actually hit me?" She didn't need her eyes to know there was a smirk on his face.

"I'm going to hide now, un!" _Come and find me! _A burst of dusty wind was the only sign she had that he had begun to run. "You'll never catch me, un!" Her peach fingers tightened around the kunai, knuckles turning slowly white.

"No way! I'm definitely going to win!"

-))—((-

"Deidara-kun!" The girl waved a kunai in exasperation, using her free hand to cover a shallow cut on her forearm. "You're making it too easy. Run a little farther this time!"

"I like being the seeker, un."

"You're just sick of getting cut," she smirked, running a hand over the blindfold that was beginning to thicken with sweat. The sleeves of her robe were marred with jagged rips, and Deidara had managed to scratch her cheek in one of their earlier rounds. Sensing his chakra and following it had not been hard (she knew he wasn't making an effort to hide it, and that irked her)—but navigating blindly through the forest near their grounds was almost impossible. She had tripped over more than a few roots, and only the sound of a fish jumping had stopped her from walking straight into the lake that fed their river. Worse was trying to aim based on sound; she emptied her kunai pouch each time and had to stop and collect all the weapons each round.

"One, two, three, I'm coming!" she shouted, twirling a kunai once around on her index finger. Pausing for a moment to get her bearings and pinpoint his chakra, she listened carefully. Not far off, the ring of steel on steel drifted from their training grounds. A ripple of the wind through the trees and over the water was broken by a repetitive 'thok', the sound of sandals slamming against branches… She spun left and kicked off the ground, a smile lighting her lips. This time, she wouldn't give him a chance to distract her.

-))—((-

Mahogany eyes narrowed, delicate black lashes falling like a guillotine. _This 'Sakura', the apprentice of Uchiha Itachi…_ Sasori leaned silently against the gnarled trunk of a tree, watching the girl flicker into nothing. _What is her potential, and what is her purpose?_

The questions she had plagued him with throughout the week rang in his head, and the puppet master laughed wryly, just once.

-))—((-

She lifted open hands before her as she leapt between trees, to prevent herself from running into branches she couldn't see. She caught a limb and swung up onto it. Deidara's chakra had stopped and split. A rustle of cloth very near to her ear made her jerk reflexively, and she almost loosed a kunai toward the sound, but stopped herself just in time—the body standing near to her sounded and felt like Deidara, but… a light breeze picked at the leaves of the tree they stood below, and carried the body's scent to her. It was the oppressive, dry scent of clay, and she knew immediately: it was only a Bunshin.

Deidara did not smell of clay unless he had been gathering it in large amounts, _which_, she thought, _he hasn't done today_. _No, the real Deidara would smell like…_ The sheets they shared were always thick with his scent: ashes and ginger. Sakura already had plans to steal his soap, because it left such a pleasant, lingering smell. The wind shifted suddenly against his favor, bringing her a trace of the sharp, clean scent she had come to know well. She shot through the trees without attempting to be stealthy—he would be able to sense her coming, even if she tried hard to cloak her Chakra.

Deidara smiled softly to himself; it had been a long time since he'd enjoyed training so much. Sakura had a determination that was warming, and a desire to learn and improve that he'd never seen in a girl. She was intriguing, to say the least. He wondered suddenly, as he retreated, if she had ever killed anyone. An image of Sakura, painted in blood, flashed through his head, slowing his steady pace and giving her an advantage. He dove out of the way as she leapt and, pulling himself up, bounded off again through the trees. If he didn't focus, the artist scolded himself, she would overtake him! He crushed the urge to laugh in favor of running faster.

Sakura heard the tell-tale whistle of steel and tore sideways, avoiding a kunai from behind. _The Bunshin!_ He was using the clone on offensive to distract her. She threw a kunai wildly over her shoulder, knowing it wouldn't hit. _I can't lose his trail now…I won't find it again!_ Desperately she followed the Chakra signature she knew belonged to the real Iwa-ninja. She ran faster to keep out of the bunshin's range, and that extra speed brought her closer to his real form—she was almost in striking distance. A senbon buried itself deeply in the tree trunk above her head, but Sakura was passed dealing with the clone. She tore a kunai free of her pouch and aimed it swiftly in the direction all her senses were telling her he was.

Just as she released the blade, an oppressive power shuddered through the trees, raising goosebumps on her skin. She undid the blindfold without a moment's pause and dropped quickly from the tree. Deidara, only a few feet ahead of her, followed suit, and the Bunshin faded into a lump of lifeless clay.

Itachi trailed stiffly through the trees, but the majority of the foreign and pressing power belonged to a tall, blue-haired woman who stood beside the leaf-ninja.

"Konan-san…" Deidara drew a breath sharply between his teeth, and from the corner of her eyes, Sakura saw him stiffen. She turned her attention fully on the oppressive presence beside her master. The blue-haired woman wore their standard Akatsuki cloak, the clasps done up high around her face. Even with her mouth hidden, Sakura could tell her delicate face was marred with a cool, disinterested look. The white paper flower in her water-colored hair seemed at odds with her terrifying strength. _She must be the leader's partner!_ Sakura had not thought he had one. Something about the woman frightened her, but simultaneously, she wanted to speak to her. A kunoichi in Akatsuki… Sakura couldn't help imagining herself wearing the woman's _Byaku_ ring. Would she one day be one of the official ten? It made her feel like a foolish dreamer, but she hoped so.

"A meeting has been called." The woman's voice was soft—the sound of the whispering pages of books, of still water—and it rung with the sweetness of nectar and the threat of hidden toxins. Sakura watched Itachi's Sharingan spin idly, and she knew that he was just as uncomfortable with this stranger who was also an ally.

"I'll go back to my room," Sakura sighed softly, knowing those without rings were not welcome in their gathered discussions. If even this mysterious Konan had returned for the meeting, it would have to be a matter of extreme and pressing importance. She stepped quietly around them all, running fingers over the rips in her cloak sleeves. For the second time that day, Sakura felt the heavy weight of eyes on her back.

The blue-haired woman turned and took a different path, leaving Itachi and the blond ninja alone in the shadow of the canopy. In the dim shade, the Sharingan seemed almost to glow with maliciousness, and Deidara suppressed a shudder. At last, without a word, the ex-leaf ninja turned and followed the blue-haired woman back toward their base.

"The Uchiha doesn't like you."

"You were watching all along then, un?" Deidara turned a cursory blue eye into the trees, as his red-headed partner stepped out of the shadows. Sasori smiled, that familiar distant and empty smile.

"We'll be late," the puppet master murmured, but his words were disinterested, and Deidara wondered if Sasori really cared or was just avoiding the question.

"It seemed like Konan-san hated Sakura-chan, un…"

"I don't really care." Sasori unwound a scroll with delicate, pale fingers. "Teach Sakura to make stronger bombs."

The blond ninja took slow and steady steps toward their dark cave home; Hiruko slid soundlessly beside him.

-))—((-

Sakura trudged into the darkness of the cave, trying hard to keep dejection off her face. She was pressed to come up with an insult when Kisame brushed past her, and more than anything, she wanted to go back to her room. Suddenly the exertion of running and attacking all day came back to her—she could feel the adrenaline leaking out of her veins like dying flames. Just as she turned to take the stairs down to their basement room, something stopped her. It was the darkness of the descending staircase, the empty silence of her room, the foreign loneliness of place that she did not share with the boy she had come to call her master.

Without even intending to, her feet turned around and carried her to the ascending staircase—to Itachi's room. It was as barren as she'd imagined, but it did not feel cold. He was here in the smallest things: the measured way the comforter was folded at the end of the bed, the spare cloak laid without a wrinkle over the back of the room's lone chair… The muscles of her shoulders relaxed, a smile plucked at her lips unconsciously, and she sighed, half in relief. Though she knew it might irritate him, the pink-haired kunoichi fell unceremoniously onto his bed. The thin feather pillow slid to fit her face, and she could smell the sharp, clean scent of his hair, a fading cinnamon and the cedar wood of the bedposts.

Pressed against his sheets, she could imagine for a moment that things were still the same. They were together again, side by side, alone in a world that could not touch them. Nothing, she lied to herself, nothing had changed. Nothing had come between them. Her throat tightened, tears pricked in her eyes. She bit her lip and blinked the forming droplets away. She had not cried since she had met him, she was not going to cry now. There was nothing to cry about. The pink-haired girl buried her face deeper into his pillow. Nothing had changed.

But in her mind, all she could see was Itachi's back as he walked, without hesitation, away from her.

-))—((-

When the shouting began, she was halfway in and out of dreams. The repeating words in her mind clashed with the raucous noise filtering from below, and she sat up swiftly. Malicious aura pooled upward from underground, striking her like a wall. Her stomach turned, beads of cold sweat rose on her forehead, her hands shook uncontrollably. _This killing intent…_ The voices were a jumble of senseless words and unhidden rage, and she could hear them even from so far away. She wanted to leap up and run—away from the malevolent chakra or toward it, she wasn't sure. _Itachi-sama!_

Just when she thought the killing pressure of the chakra might make her throw up, it snapped and died. There was suddenly a thick stillness that was almost as frightening as the unrestrained power had been. Then, she heard Hidan's howl breaking the tense silence.

"FUCK THIS!" There was no answer.

The doorknob turned halfway and stopped, and Sakura knew immediately who stood on the other side. He knew that she was there too.

"Itachi-sama…" She had attempted to hide the intense concern in her voice and failed. "What was that? What happened?" He brushed past her and sat back in the poor excuse for an armchair across the room.

"A disagreement." His voice was steady but his hand, pressed into the chair's arm, twitched once as if he wished he was holding a kunai. Sakura longed to ask exactly what he meant, but he had not offered the information—he did not want her to know. Something in her chest tightened, and she could not help but think that before they had joined Akatsuki, there had not been many secrets between them. She could see he was tense, though his face was placid. She could see unease in the rise of his shoulders, in the stiffness of his back.

For a long moment, Sakura faltered. She wanted to know, she wanted to respect him, she wanted to take the tension from him and make everything as easy as it used to be. She unclenched her fists and tried to breathe normally. Was there nothing she could do?

His nail polish was chipped. It was the most ridiculous thing to notice in a moment like that; she almost giggled nervously. The careful purple lacquer on his ring finger was badly chipped—looking closer, she could see the coats were not as even as they looked from afar. Itachi was less adept at painting his nails than he had been pretending, and she did laugh then.

"You didn't let them dry long enough." The unwavering Sharingan blinked once in her direction, a hint of confusion and interest in narrowed eyes. "The polish." His heavy gaze left her face to inspect his nails. "May I…" she stumbled over the words and wondered if she wasn't being too forward, "may I fix them for you?" The Uchiha was silent for a moment, and then he looked away. She knew the gesture was one of acceptance. "Where's the polish remover?"

His hand was stiff when she took it in her own, and sadness tinged in her chest. Did he not even trust her now? Delicately, she ran the alcohol soaked cotton over his nails, and though she tried her hardest to be careful, barely visible stains of purple marred his cuticles. She had to go over both hands twice to remove all traces of the paint. His hands were warm in hers, and when she had to let him go to retrieve the polish bottle, her palms felt empty and cold.

He was silent as she painted, taking pains not to misplace a drop. At last, when she traced the nail of his ring finger, he breathed quietly. It was almost a sigh, but Sakura did not think he was prone to such a human habit.

"You," he murmured, "shouldn't spend so much time with that Iwa ninja." His voice was redolent with condemnation; something inside Sakura shattered like falling glass.

"Who should I spend time with then? You're not there anymore." The words came off her lips like poison and she regretted them the moment they were said. The retribution she expected from Itachi never came; he would not meet her eyes. "Forgive me Itachi-sama." The brush stilled above his last nail, and Sakura could not steady her shaking hand long enough to finish painting. "I didn't mean that."

But they both knew that she had.

She finished at last and cleared away the chemicals without saying a word. The things she wanted to tell him were stuck in her throat, regret and reluctance made her stomach turn.

"I would rather be with you," his voice was even and quiet.

"Itachi-sa—" Her words were clipped short as a filmy haze bubbled suddenly from the floor. Sakura leapt back and drew kunai as it took on the form of a man.

"Itachi." The voice from the haze was familiar, and she could see now it was an eerie projection of their leader. "He's gone."

The leaf-ninja stood, Sharingan suddenly alive with hatred. "Your orders?" His words were sharp, mocking and macabre.

"Pursue and destroy." The shadow shape of their leader vanished as quickly as he had come.

"Itachi-sama, what is…" The Uchiha was already gone, the doorway wide and empty. She moved to slide her kunai away and follow him, but something stilled her. White-knuckled, Sakura clenched the weapon and tore down the stairs after the man she called her master.

She cleared the last step and froze in shock. All of Akatsuki stood there together –no, not all, she couldn't help but think, their leader and Orochimaru were both missing– frustration marring each of their faces. Eight black and red cloaks, eight gods of death… Sakura was suddenly struck with longing. _If I were good enough to reach them…_

"Deidara-kun, what is going on?" She took a place beside the blond artist, knowing Itachi would never answer her questions.

"That Orochimaru bastard's finally shone his true colors, un."

"He's deserted, and taken his ring with him." Hiruko's gravelly-metallic voice almost startled her.

"And the orders are to pursue and destroy him," she finished, eyeing the tense group with anticipation and anxiety. _Orochimaru has deserted. Orochimaru has deserted._ The words rung in her head. If he had truly left, his place in the organization… His position as one of the Ten was empty! If she, if they, could retrieve his ring… She could become one of them. Desperation roared through her veins, made her heart pound painfully against her ribcage. She could become a true member of Akatsuki. There was a way to close the gap between them. If it meant her life, Sakura burnt the vow into her mind, she would take the _Sora_ ring as her own.

A projection of their leader flickered into view, monotone face taut with suppressed rage. "The target is to be silenced, and the ring to be returned without damage, is that understood?" The two-dimensional form shot a sharp glare in Deidara's direction.

"Understood," Deidara hissed.

"Scatter!" The projection died; there was perhaps a half second's tensing, and then they were simultaneously performing transportation jutsu. Sakura slide sideways, locking on to Itachi's signature in time to follow him.

The smoke of their jutsu faded, leaving emerald eyes to focus swiftly. They were in the forest, the towering trees blocking most traces of moonlight. Kisame stood beside her, every muscle tensed. A brutal smile rent his face.

"Zetsu said Orochimaru's been slipping off into untamed land on the far side of Fire Country." Kisame chuckled at the irony.

"We'll have to pass through Fire Country in our pursuit." Sakura's hand rose unconsciously to trace the scar through her headband.

"Does that bother you little girl?" The mist-ninja smirked down at her. She turned away, unsure of how to answer. _My allegiance lies with Itachi-sama._ The Uchiha stood a few feet from them, and his Sharingan eyes had the faraway look of memories best forgotten. In the shards of moonlight that managed to drip through the canopy, he looked ethereal and young. _But… where does his allegiance lie?_

"We'll fall behind," Itachi muttered and leapt silently into the trees. With a growl, Kisame followed after. Sakura did not have time to stand idle, but she hesitated for a moment before following the two men. _Fire Country… Konoha… It used to be our home, but now I'm afraid to even cross its border._ She shook her head to clear away the thoughts and pounded over tree limbs after her master.

"Why would Orochimaru choose now to betray, when we were all gathered together?" The breathy words came out between her kicks against tree limbs.

"The snake wouldn't have betrayed at all if he hadn't slipped up at our meeting a few hours ago." Kisame's white and black eyes flashed with bloodlust and excitement.

"I heard everyone arguing, but what really happened?" Itachi was silent in front of them.

"Apparently that pasty bastard has had his eye on the Sharingan for a long time. He was looking to start trouble with all of us. If the leader hadn't intervened, it would have been a bloodbath then and there. Even Itachi-san looked ready to kill." The shark ninja chuckled as if the idea of rebellion in their midst pleased him.

"Have you ever been to the Valley of the End?" Itachi's steady voice wove behind to them effortlessly. _The Valley of End…_ _the Hokage…_

"Once, why?" She stared at her master's back.

"When we get into range," Kisame answered instead, "we'll be using transportation jutsu to reach that place." He turned to grin maliciously in her direction. "Hope you're capable of covering such long distances. You wouldn't want to strand yourself somewhere in the middle of enemy territory." Sakura resisted the urge to point out that there was no corner on the map that wasn't enemy territory.

There was no marker at the border between River and Fire, but somehow, she felt the change. She felt the familiarity and the foreignness that could only mean she had entered the place that was her homeland and the one place she had never wanted to return to.

"Here." Itachi dropped effortlessly from the trees, slipping in the stance for a transportation jutsu. She mimicked like a shadow, and the three of them vanished from the dark forest, leaving nothing but a few tendrils of fading haze.

The sound of roaring water pounded in her ears even before her eyes had adjusted to the sudden flood of moonlight. They were perched on the First Hokage's stone head, far above the pool of water beneath the fall. Mist flew up gently, carried by the night breeze, and Sakura relished the feeling for a moment before turning her attention to the seemingly endless wood that stretched east.

"He's somewhere there." Her fingernails bit harshly into the calloused flesh of her palms. "Why? Why would he choose to betray, knowing he would be hunted down?"

"He wouldn't have risked keeping the ring if he didn't think he could win."

"How could one man win against you all?" She blinked in Itachi's direction, disliking the solemn and distant look on his face.

"I highly doubt he is alone."

"Chances are," Kisame leered over the howl of the water, "we are walking right into a trap." Itachi vanished in a run too swift for her emerald eyes to follow.

Black, gnarled trees raced past her as dark blurs, and she did not slow at all, even when they turned a sharp left to follow higher branches. The air felt heavy, thick with an ominous sort of promise, and Sakura wondered just where in this vast, untamed land they were running, and what sort of danger they were running into. A sluggish river flashed under them, and they bounded along its bank. The moonlight was high and cold, and lit the tall grass with a silver glare.

A sudden massive bird shadow darted above them, blotting out the light. It shot past before Sakura could even slow her body down, and her fingers were flashing through defensive hand seals until recognition struck: it was giant clay owl, flapping rapidly and silently. _Deidara-kun!_ The blond Iwa ninja stood effortlessly between the owl's shoulders, untroubled at all by the heaving of its wings. Sasori's hunched form stood beside him, and both men stared forward with a cruel determination and anxiousness marring their faces.

"Kakuzu and the others are coming from Taki to strike on another front, un," the artist called without turning to look at them. His normally bright voice was roiling with maliciousness and bloodlust. Sakura could not suppress a shiver. "Zetsu was able to pin-point Orochimaru's general location, un. We should be entering the snake's territory in a few minutes, un."

Sakura clenched her fists and the force of her pounding feet left holes in the ground. _Battle against one of the legendary sannin…_ Fear and eagerness fought in her stomach, and a smirk crept onto her lips between gasps for air. _This is a chance to prove myself._

-))—((-

Fire: distant flames and pillars of smoke rose above the tree-line like a beckon.

"Shit," from ahead of her, Kisame cursed, "we're late."

There was silence, nothing but the sound of their feet, nothing but her heart pounding in her ears, nothing but her breath—and then the world was shattering. Screaming, screaming, screaming! Her eardrums pounded, fighting against the wall of noise that rose suddenly toward them. A thousand, thousand people screaming, what was the noise, where was it coming, who, who? Sakura could not keep her thoughts straight, and she could not stop her hands from slamming over her ears in a desperate attempt to block out the horrifying sound. She could barely keep pace with Itachi who seemed not to be bothered by the tidal wave of wailing, and then they had cleared the forest at last and—

"Oh God."

Blood. Everywhere, everywhere blood was flowing. From bodies, from the stumps of limbs, from mouths, from mountains of corpses, across the grass, across their skin… Flames licked the earth and the sky, dying the entire battlefield an orange-red, glinting on the crimson pools and off the corpses' eyes. Sakura's stomach turned, only desperation kept her from heaving. Deidara's massive bird swept by and she saw him leap into the middle of the battlefield as if he had been born there. Sasori was dancing back and forth among their opponents as if he was untouchable, and she could see chakra strings shimmering in the flames. Itachi flew forward into the mire, cloak billowing behind him like bloody black wings, like a raven, like an angel of death.

Sakura felt frozen, her legs would not answer her mind, and _God! There's so much blood…_ She could hear Deidara laughing, heard the explosions, heard the desperate last pleadings. There was even blood on him, she could not stop herself from laughing, quiet shaking laughter; there was blood staining his blond hair, there was blood on his cheeks, blood on his hands. Far away, she could hear Hidan shouting.

_"This is your punishment!" _

She did not hear the whistle of the kunai until it was almost too late and only instinct allowed her to lean far enough back to evade the blade. A ninja leapt toward her, his twisted purple waistband dancing in the wind, and suddenly her body was moving on its own. She locked kunai with him, forced him aside, spun around to meet his parry. He pushed her back, and Sakura drove under his arm to slam her palm into his chest. He stepped back quickly, chuckling at what he thought was a poor attempt at a punch. Sakura watched herself as if from a great distance—that smirk could not really belong to her.

"Katsu," her lips hissed on their own, and the small explosive tag she'd attached to his chest ignited. Red drenched her, struck her skin like rain, dying her hair dark. _I killed him. I killed him._ And suddenly she was in control of herself, and she had never felt so strong, so powerful, so free before! Adrenaline pumped in her veins like fire, she wanted nothing more than to fight, again again! She dove into the battle, words for destructive jutsu rolling on her tongue.

Enormous snakes rose above the burning field, hisses filling the air already thick with screams and moans of agony. From the corner of her eye, Sakura watched the blue-haired Akatsuki woman strike against the serpent's thick scales, sinking a strange white spear in where she could. One of the massive beasts convulsed and fell; venom and saliva foamed up in its mouth. _Konan-san uses poison? _Sakura had time to think, before another enemy closed in on her.

-))—((-

"Deidara-kun!" She caught him from the corner of her eye and hurried to his side.

"I'm out of clay, un." He smiled cruelly; she moved to stand back-to-back with him. "Why are there so many of them? Ten more show up for every one I kill, un!" He hurled a barrage of shuriken toward the closest bunch of enemies. "They're like fucking cockroaches!"

_We aren't advancing,_ she hissed mentally, _we aren't getting any closer to Orochimaru's base!_ She had seen it twice, through the haze, the low walls and descending stairs.

An enormous metal monstrosity rose suddenly from nothingness on the other side of the battlefield.

"Rashoumon Gate!" Deidara snarled. "They've brought in stronger reinforcements, un." And then he was gone, leaping across the battlefield toward the gate in a spatter of blood.

Sakura struggled to maintain her chakra flow, keeping the jutsu to the bare minimum. If she ran out of chakra in the middle of battle, her chances of living, let alone winning, would be shot to hell. Her weapons pouch emptied too quickly, and she stooped between blows to pluck weapons from the corpses littering the ground. Blood from their bodies seeped into the sleeves of her cloak, weighed her down. _How much longer is this going to last? I can't hold this pace forever…_ But Orochimaru's forces did not seem to dwindle, even as she began to tire. If anything, Sakura spat blood out of her mouth, there seemed to be more as time passed.

-))—((-

She ripped through the ranks of opponents, not hearing their cries. She heard Itachi's voice in her mind, every lesson he had taught her, every order… She did not realize until it was too late: the ranks of people she was cutting through now were not fighting back. They were not carrying weapons. They were running, they were screaming. _These people… they're not shinobi! They're not shinobi! They're civilians!_ She stopped, lowered the kunai she had bared to strike down another. _Orochimaru sent innocents onto this battlefield too._ She watched a woman –a girl, just a girl– cower beside the corpses of other harmless civilians. _We're killing innocent people. We're killing innocent people._

She watched Itachi. In the flickering light of the fire, his Sharingan shone, spinning with clinical patience and disinterest. He slit the throat of a crying young boy and kept moving without pause. She knew then, she knew like she had never known before: they were murderers. All of them were murderers, cold-blooded killers. Her shaking hands lost grip on the kunai and it sunk into the red, red earth at her feet. Her fingers were bloody. She was bloody. _I'm a murderer. I'm a member of Akatsuki. This is what it means to wear their cloak… _One of Kakuzu's elemental beasts stuck its fist through a man's chest and tore out his heart. It beat weakly in the creature's grasp and then stilled.

She saw it then, the dark opening into Orochimaru's lair. There were people in the way: confused civilians and darting ninja. In that heavy darkness, somewhere, the _Sora_ ring laid waiting for her. She could be a full-fledged member of their organization. She could earn the right to fight beside him forever. She could become…

One of Sasori's puppets cut a man cleanly in half; he fell and screamed and screamed and then was silent.

Trembling fingers reached down to pull the kunai back into her grip. She was already a missing-nin. She was already a murderer. She was running before she knew what was happening. The dark stairway loomed closer; the battlefield seemed far away and dream-like…

There was a woman standing in her way. A civilian: a weak, frightened creature. She would not move. Sakura pounded across the field, over the fallen bodies; the woman did not move, and there was some sort of terrified determination in her watery brown eyes.

"Don't stand in my way!" Sakura heard her voice but could not remember forming the words. "DON'T STAND IN MY WAY!" The woman did not move.

Sakura's kunai ripped through her throat like paper. The blade met her spine and stuck—Sakura's hand sunk into the open flesh as blood began to bubble up from severed arteries. With a hiss that was half disgust and half terror, the pink-haired girl kicked the corpse away. _I haven't cried since I met him._ She felt the prickle of forming tears and bit her lip to focus on the pain. _I won't cry now._

_I won't cry now. This is what it means to be Akatsuki._

The stairs were there before her, clear and dark and beckoning. She took the first step forward, her wet sandal slapping on the stone and echoing into the black corridor. _Orochimaru… _He frightened her, she hated him, she wanted to kill him, knew she could not but her feet walked forward anyway. One step, two steps, three—there was a sharp hiss of wind, and she threw herself backward, almost tripping over the stairs as a body flew upward from the darkness, sword drawn. His white hair glinted in the moonlight, he flashed toward her at insane speed, she barely evaded the blade—no, she hissed as it stabbed past her face, it was a bone.

"I won't let you endanger Orochimaru-sama's dream." His voice was young and quiet.

"Who are you?' She rose from a fallen crouch to her feet, fingering the edge of her kunai.

"Kaguya Kimimaro." In the flicker of dying fire and the sickly moonlight, his poisonous green eyes seemed to glow. The thin, loose material of his shirt slipped down his pale peach arm and pooled uselessly around his wrist. He sank lower on his knees, a clearly offensive stance, and she braced herself to leap away. "I won't let trash like you defy Orochimaru-sama's ambition."

He was on her suddenly, an inch from her, the red tika on his brow filling her eyes. She could not see it, but she could feel it—the bone about to rip, ripping through her flesh! It was too late to evade completely, she turned to protect her vital organs, felt the needle fine point of the mock-blade slice through the skin of her side.

_He's fast…_ She hit the ground and rolled below his strike, kicking upward in hopes of breaking his arm. He rotated the blade in a movement so fluid her eyes could not follow and knocked her kick aside. Her ankle strained to take the full weight of her body, and she had less than a second to recover before he was striking again, forcing the glinting bone into a barrage of blows that seemed to come from every angle at once. She rushed backward, barely managing to keep herself upright as they wove together over the scattered corpses.

"This is my Mahogany Dance."

_He's too fast; I don't even have a chance to strike back! No,_ she grit her teeth and pushed against his sword with her kunai, shuddering under the heavy weight of his arm, _he's not too fast. Itachi-sama is faster. Itachi-sama is faster!_ The second kunai was in her hand before she knew she had grabbed it, and the kunoichi shot forward. Parrying his blade with one arm, she struck out at his neck, black-steel flashing in the orange-red glare. A bone burst from his collar, knocked the blade aside, pressed hard against the tender flesh of her hand.

"Bones from there too?!" She jerked and flipped out of his arm's reach, emerald eyes wide and wary.

"A Kekkei Genkai. Shikotsu Myaku." He seemed content to stand, waiting for her offensive, and the contempt in his narrowed eyes struck her like a slap. The exposed clavicle bone sunk back beneath his skin, and for a moment she could see the broken blood vessels, the wet muscle, the layers of pussy white dermis. "The ability to manipulate bone at will, and to increase the calcium content of those bones to make them as hard as steel."

_I need to come up with a plan. S_he ground her foot into the grass, feeling the bloodied blades brushing against her bare toes. _This isn't the type of opponent I can face without a strategy!_ Sakura wondered how long he would stand waiting; he shifted impatiently, and she knew it would not be long. _What sort of jutsu will be effective against that ability? The kunai didn't even leave marks._ _I don't know any fire jutsu hot enough to burn fortified bone!_

He darted toward her suddenly like a crane—she could not move, she could not breathe, she watched his flash closer and closer. Her body screamed to dodge, but something in her mind was trapped. He twisted sinuously, bones bursting free of his forearms and palms, and every step was fluid, as fast as water, flowing flawlessly, seamlessly, so fast, so fast! The needle-fine points of his blades slammed into her mercilessly.

He pulled back and cursed when her body went up in a plume of smoke, revealing a deeply scarred hunk of wood.

"Kawarimi…" His long, tasseled hair whipped back and forth as his eyes searched for her hidden location.

_He moves like water. Like water._ She crouched behind a mound of corpses, blind to every battle but her own. _"To increase the calcium content of those bones…"_ His words and her own thoughts fought for dominance in her racing head, and her weary legs trembled. _"Calcium…" Like water._

"Water jutsu," she whispered the words to herself as they slammed into her mind. _If I could dilute the increased levels of calcium by exposing his bones to water… they'd become no harder than normal bones!_ She could hear measured steps approaching, and something that sounded like his sword being dragged through the grass. "Kuso," the word wasn't even audible above the sound of battle. _Neither Itachi-sama nor I are natural Water Chakra users… I barely know any water-based attacks! And,_ she shifted lower in the hopes he would not see her, _even if I have enough Chakra left over to perform jutsu, my body is about to give out._

He leapt over her, sleeves billowing behind him in a mockery of wings, bones bursting from his flesh with sickening squelches. _No choice!_ Every fiber of her being screamed at her to attack. And then too late, _there's no water here!_

"Suirou no jutsu!" Her hands flashed through the seals and the words spilled desperately over her lips but she knew they would usele—she was as shocked as he was when a dark pool bubbled up and engulfed him in roiling red waves. "The blood…" Instinctively she plunged her palm into the crimson sphere to stop the jutsu from unraveling. _There's water in the blood—but will it be enough?_ She felt him kick against the side of the liquid prison. _How long will I have to hold the jutsu?_

A spear of bone ripped through the wavering blood near to her palm and she threw herself sideways to avoid the strike while desperately trying to remain in contact with the prison. "Shit!" _He can't move his body, but he doesn't need to move to shoot his bones out!_ And she knew immediately: now that he knew the bones were capable of piercing the blood prison, he would—the crimson ball erupted in an outward hail of porcelain white spikes.

She shook, trapped between a multitude of spears that she had barely managed to slide between in time. All of her tired muscles howled for respite, but she could not afford to stand still for longer than a moment. _I was right,_ she couldn't help but smirk—because the original bone sphere had not shot out as far the second time. _The longer it's exposed, the weaker it becomes! If I can evade a few more times…_ The bones retracted and Sakura readied herself to dodge again.

"This is like a cat and mouse game," she called to him, "you can't see me, so you don't know where to concentrate your attack." She leapt to get away from the sound of her own voice, not a moment too soon. Spikes ripped the air apart where she had taunted him. They were getting shorter. She leapt as he struck again. "If you don't try something new Kimimaro-kun, I'll be able to crush you with my bare hands." She thought she could feel his anger radiating through the prison—and then it grew and she knew she was feeling something far worse. His chakra had started to explode. Pure, dark, malicious energy roiled out of the crimson pool in strong enough waves to make Sakura reel. _This chakra isn't normal!_

The blood prison shattered, dying the air with red mist and splashing over her lips. His green eyes were as cold as death, and his bloody chest glowed with an expanding black pattern of lines that snaked over his flesh like tattoos.

"Don't underestimate Orochimaru-sama's power!" His sword descended in an unfailing sweep. "Dance of the Willow!" She lifted an arm to block, and grimaced as the sharp edge sunk into her flesh—but it could not cut deeply through her muscle and she knew her water prison technique had not failed.

He knocked away a volley of her shuriken, but his bones could no longer cut through the steel. _He's getting faster!_ She cursed and had to drop to the ground to escape a barrage of needle-fine strikes.

"I'll be the one to protect Orochimaru-sama's dream! I'll be the one to protect Orochimaru-sama!"

She held back a scream as his bone bit into her back. _No choice,_ she spun and leapt away, putting a few meters between them, _I have to risk the chakra loss. I can't fight against him without _that_ jutsu! _She straightened, summoning the already fading pool of her reserve chakra and lacing it into her feet. He stilled, tensing for her attack. She traced a half circle with her toes in the grass as she stepped back, watching the chakra glow then fade. She traced another half circle with lightening speed and slammed the jutsu into the earth and air between them.

"Ninpou, Tsukiwasarete!"

The battlefield was plunged into darkness—Kimimaro could not see, could not hear, could not feel the bone tightly gripped in his hand. Fear tugged at the back of his throat; the curse seal spread farther along his skin.

"Are you frightened?" Her voice was in his ears but it seemed sourceless; he could see nothing but an infinite blackness. "Kimimaro-kun, Kimimaro-kun…" her words echoed in the abyss. "We're going to tear your master's ambitions to shreds. I'm going to tear you to shreds!"

Pain shot through him without warning, and he dropped his eyes to his stomach—where a kunai was buried deep in his flesh. It had not been there before and he had not seen it being thrown. He tried to reach to pull it out, but his hand did answer and he knew he could not move. It was a deep blow and he bled profusely, scarlet drops rolling down and staining his cream uniform. He hardly had to will the bone to spread; it grew instantly beneath his skin and encased his soft organs protectively. The wound in his stomach did not close off, and the broken blood vessels in his skin continued to bleed sluggishly.

She stepped away from his prone form and she could see a flicker of pain before frustration darkened his expression. She paid close attention to his eyes: they had clouded over with a white film and stared lifelessly ahead. The whiter they became, she knew, the stronger her genjutsu would hold him.

"Does it hurt Kimimaro-kun?" He could not feel her as she stood beside him, hissing into his ear. "Oh? 'Not enough' you said? Let me try again!" She slammed a kunai into his chest and then cursed as it met an internal wall of bone. _Even with his senses blocked by my genjutsu, he's still able to defend himself!_

"How about your eyes Kimimaro-kun, have you got bones in them?" The edge of her blade danced along his left eye, cutting through the delicate flesh of his eyelid. Blood ran swiftly down his cheek, a mockery of tears. She turned the knife away, could not bring herself to blind him. Eyes were precious things and he was young and beautiful.

It was almost a shame; she scratched at his neck and found the bone as solid there. "Kimimaro-kun," she growled, stepping back. He wavered, eyes growing slightly clearer, and Sakura poured more chakra into maintaining the genjutsu. _I can't hold it much longer…This has to end now._ "Are you enjoying this, making things hard for me?" She felt the sudden urge to slap his vacant face—as if it was his fault, all his fault that she had to struggle, had to kill, had prove herself. "Do you enjoy this?!"

He stared straight ahead blindly, mind far away in her trap. His thin body looked utterly unprotected, innocent in the cold moonlight, and Sakura felt suddenly guilty. He was only doing what he thought was right. He was only being loyal to the man who he considered his master. If someone had threatened Itachi, wouldn't she act in the same way: defending him with her life? Were they… were they the same? It seemed cruel when she thought of it that way, and the words left a sour taste in her mouth.

"I'm sorry Kimimaro-kun. Our masters both have desires, and there can only be one victor in a battle." She pressed a bomb tag delicately to his chest, the skin marred by growing black chains of the curse seal.

She retreated, braced herself, and detonated the tag. The smoke cleared slowly, spiraling to the heights of the burning forest, joining multitudes of tendrils and dying the air a hazy gray.

He was still standing. He was still standing, with a gaping hole where pale flesh used to be. What remained was blackened, charred, and bubbling weakly. The bone protecting his chest, uneven as it curved in ribs, was cracked. A chip slipped free and buried itself in the grass at his feet. He had bit his lip to keep from screaming and blood trailed down from the corner of his mouth.

"Damn you!" she cried, hatred and pity and fear pressing in her throat, making it impossible to form the words. Her control of the genjutsu wavered, she pressed down on it cruelly with all she could. "Why won't you give up? JUST GIVE UP!" She didn't want to fight him now, could not stand the thought of killing him—it would be like killing herself.

"GIVE UP!" She punched him hard enough to knock him to the ground. She punched his empty face again, again.

She felt him fighting against the senses-blocking jutsu; she kicked him hard, knocking pieces of the shattered, exposed bone into the bloody grass. "Orochimaru is trash! He doesn't give a shit about anyone!" _He doesn't deserve your devotion!_ She pressed the heel of her sandal into his throat, where only the bone kept her from crushing his windpipe. "He betrayed us, he'll betray you! He'll betray you!"

"No!" he hissed suddenly, and she knew, like a cold blade in her brain, that she had said the wrong thing. "He won't!" The genjutsu clung desperately for a moment and then was broken completely by burst of chakra strong and dark enough to force her back a step. The black edges of the skin she had burned away glowed ominously and darkened. The color spread like a pestilence over what flesh was left. He twitched and bones burst suddenly from his back like spider's legs. A whip-like tail grew from his spine, studded by a ridge of vertebrae. The red tika on his brow spread and darkened to a swath of black that rimmed both his eyes. Fangs dropped to rest on his bottom lip. He was no longer the fragile boy she had trapped her in genjutsu—Sakura shuddered and could not help but think that he looked like a monster.

"I am Orochimaru-sama's precious tool! I am his container, that is my purpose! That is the meaning of existence!" He vanished in a flicker and reappeared, whipping beside her and stabbing out visciously with needle-fine bone spears in his palms. His speed had doubled, she could barely follow it. More than once the bones struck home, tearing at her flesh. Her heel buried in an errant corpse, she fell to the ground and flipped as far away as she could—but he was after her instantly, faster than her eyes could follow.

"I am Orochimaru-sama's most precious servant! Orochimaru-sama needs me!" His voice was desperate and tremulous, and she wondered if he was trying to convince her or himself. "I'm not meaningless." Something in Sakura's chest tightened at the words, because she knew them so well. She knew the love, the devotion, the desire to prove oneself that came with those words. She understood him, and it hurt.

He backed away suddenly, yellow and black eyes narrowing in rage and anxiety. She climbed wearily to her feet, muscles that had been screaming throughout their battle now barely responding. She'd pushed herself too far, taking on so many opponents before facing him… And the genjutsu had drained almost all of the chakra she'd had left. There was nothing but wisps now, not enough to even perform Henge. Blood loss was starting to affect her where adrenaline had prevented it before, and her vision swam for a second before she forced herself to focus. A thought whispered in her mind like condemnation, she tried visciously to ignore it and failed.

_I can't win. I should retreat._ But before she could even move to escape, his stance tightened again, a smirk danced slowly across his lips, and he muttered words that sent a shiver down her spine:

"Dance of the Crane Flower." His left arm burst open, skin splitting and tearing with a sickening wet hiss, and his hand was engulfed in a spiraled bone lance. He pounded toward her with lightening fast steps, but everything seemed to slow in her mind. He seemed to be crawling, her desperate step back seemed to take an eternity, her heart did not beat.

_I'm going to die. _

_NO! I WON'T DIE SO EASILY!_

She lifted her foot, drawing every last shard of chakra she could, ignoring the howling of overused muscles, and kicked out at him.

She felt her blow connect with his chest, ringing with power. The bone splintered and broke; something inside him collapsed.

She felt his blow connect with her middle, the cold spear of bone tearing through her already bleeding flesh, tearing through her fragile organs, tearing through her back.

He fell to his knees. She ripped backward off the bone lance and dropped into the grass, her blood mixing with so many others'. Distantly, she heard someone screaming. It was a familiar voice, and a familiar word.

"Sakura!" But somehow it sounded foreign and so, so far away. She didn't know who it was, or who she wanted it to be. The grass was cold and slick against her cheeks and she could feel the blades catching in the sticky open wound through her abdomen. Kimimaro did not stand up and she looked at him, even when her vision began to waver and fade into darkness. He was the innocent pale boy again, coughing into his hands. There was blood there and on his lips, staining his flesh, and his green eyes were wide and frightened. He was crying, or she thought so, but it was really becoming hard to see and she was cold and couldn't feel her legs and why were her eyes so heavy and _oh_, she thought, _I'm dying_.

Sakura's breath hitched, her heart stopped, and blackness stronger than any genjutsu swallowed her world.

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_"Thank God."_

_"Thank Jashin you fucker."_

_"Her pulse is weak, but she'll probably survive." _She was being held, no carried. She could feel things suddenly—pain, pain in every part of her body, and coldness and she felt as if she might throw up. She tried to move and found her body completely unresponsive. For a moment Sakura thought she had died and gone to hell, because she couldn't imagine a worse agony. She wanted to scream but even her vocal chords were not answering.

_What happened?_ She could feel her head lolling on someone's shoulder, neck stiff from prolonged combat and her unconscious position. She desperately tried to open her eyes—her eyelids felt like lead weights and she was sure she didn't have the strength to move them. At last, she was able to crack open sore eyes to a pallid darkness and trees slowly passing by. Her vision was blurry, the indiscernible moving shapes made her stomach turn and clench as if it had been pierced by a million tiny needles. There were long strands of hair near her face, pressing against her cheek, and though she wasn't sure, they looked very blue in the half-light.

Sakura shut her eyes again, trying to clear her mind of the pain and piece together what was happening.

_I lost._ _I failed the mission. I failed Akatsuki. I failed Itachi-sama. _

_A shinobi not even strong enough to take her opponent into death with her… Am I the meaningless one?_ She felt her throat clench and her teeth pressed painfully into her tongue, momentarily driving all the other pain away. Something welled up, closed like a trap about her sluggish heart. Desperation, guilt, hatred, determination… she was not sure what to call it, but it filled her like a flame, filled her mind until she could think of nothing else. It pressed in her deadened limbs, in her heavy eyes.

_I'm going to get stronger. I'm going to become as strong as I can—strong enough that no one will defeat me. No one will survive me._

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The Tortured: Jutsu Guide

_Brought to you by Sarehptar_

_1) Kawarimi no jutsu:_ a ninjutsu technique that allows a ninja to replace his or her body with a log, stuffed doll, or some other object to evade a blow from an opponent. The ninja can then use their disappearance to stage a surprise attack or to flee the battle.

_2) Mahogany Dance:_ The second of Kimimaro's five dances. This move allows him to strike hundreds of times with his bone-sword in rapid succession, giving the opponent little chance to escape. The dance was named "mahogany" because the straight, multiple blows are similar in appearance to the Japanese mahogany tree, which grows many straight, close-together branches.

_3) Dance of the Willow:_ The first of Kimimaro's five dances. This jutsu involves very fluid-like movements and strikes that are hard to predict or evade. The move was named for the fluid way willow branches bend in the wind.

_4) Suirou no jutsu:_ "Water Prison Technique". A standard water attack that encloses the enemy in a water bubble, limiting their movement. In some cases, in the water can cut off the air flow to the ninja trapped inside, causing drowning. In less strong castings of the jutsu, it is possible for the prisoner to breathe, even inside the water. It was used by Momochi Zabuza and Hoshigaki Kisame.

_5)_ _Ninpou Tsukiwasarete: _"Illusionary Skill: Split the Moon". An original _Tortured_ genjutsu that is initiated by tracing two half-circles, one on the top of the other (done by curving the feet while simultaneously stepping backward) in the appearance of a broken moon. The genjutsu plunges the victim into abject darkness, limiting their sight, smell, and ability to move. Sakura learned this genjutsu from Itachi, as part of her intensive training in illusionary techniques.

_6) Dance of the Crane Flower:_ The fourth of Kimimaro's fives dances. Bones burst from his left palm and forearm, encasing his entire left arm in an "unbreakable" lance-like bone structure. The dance was named for the lance's shape, which is similar to the Geranium, or "Crane Flower". (The Crane Flower was named for its pointed face, which looks similar to a crane's bill.)

Also not included in this chapter are Kimimaro's two other dances:

_Dance of the Pine_ (multiple pine needle-like bones burst out over his body) and the _Dance of the Brake Fern_ (massive amounts of spines burst free of his body, forming a field of towering bones, which are similar in appearance to the fronds of the Chinese Brake Fern).

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**The Tortured: Question Corner**

_Brought to you by: Serenity Komoshiro_

Our readers left us some wonderful comments about the story, and I wanted to take the time to answer a few questions that came up in your reviews!

**Does Sakura have a Kekkei Genkai? Will she?**

The answer is, though this may make some of you unhappy, no. Sakura does not have a Kekkei Genkai and she will not be developing one at any time in this story. Despite this story being an AU, I am sticking to the canon character strengths as much as possible. I feel that by giving Sakura a Kekkei Genkai I'd be doing two things: first, I'd be powering her up way too much, into a Mary-Sue, and secondly, I'd be stealing some of her awesomeness. If Sakura had a Kekkei Genkai to rely on, she'd never have to struggle and really ACHIEVE power with her own hardwork.

**Will Sakura meet Naruto and Sasuke?**

Do you think I'd pass up that opportunity? Of course she will meet them eventually. I'm not going to say anything about when, how, or why though, that's a secret. XD

**Will Sakura learn medic jutsu?**

I don't want to spoil the story, but we do plan on having her learn medic jutsu. Who from… well that's a secret too!

And now… the most asked question:

**Is Deidara gay? **

_Serenity says_: NO, NO, NO! He's straight people! He's OBVIOUSLY straight.

_Sareh says:_ HELL YES, HE'S GAY! SASODEI FOOOO'EVAH! XD (Yaoi pwns!)

As you can tell, my beta-reader and I have been clashing over Deidara's orientation. She tends to want me to write him more ambiguous… And you wouldn't believe how much influence she has on this story. T.T On the other hand, I'm more a het. girl myself. The only thing we both agree on is Deidara causing romantic conflict here in _The Tortured_. Sarehptar says we should change the pairing to ItaSakuDei… because that's more of what it is. But… yeah, who knows what's gonna happen. (Oh wait, I know! Hee hee.)

Anyway, since Sareh is the person who really forces me to keep everyone in character, what she says goes. (That fact has gone to her head!) There may be hints of SasoDei, but I can promise there won't be any shounen-ai. And there will be **tons** of tension in the evolving ItaSakuDei troubles.

_Sareh says: _…Okay fine. We could make him bi!

_Serenity says:_ If I say "yes" to that, are the fangirls gonna eat me alive?

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**Serenity and Sareh say:** We love you all so, so, so much. All your reviews make our day. (We've been on the phone so many times saying things like "OMG, A NEW REVIEW! GET ONLINE AND READ IT!") We love hearing from you guys, it really lets us know that there are people out there who like our story, and we love feeling loved! **Please review this chapter!** Tell us what you liked, tell us what you didn't like. Tell us that you loved it, tell us that you hated it! Whatever you have to say to us, let's hear from you! It's the readers (and reviewers) who keep this story alive. We got 66 reviews last chapter, can we beat that?

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	4. Fall From Grace

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**Author's Notes:** It's been almost a year since the last update, but we got this up in time! Before you begin reading this **horrendously long chapter** (all for the love of our readers) I want to apologize for the lack of updating. It's not Sareh's fault this time, but my own. Over the course of 2007, my life was an utter mess. As I said in the previous chapter my mother was growing ill—to the point where she was legally blind for three months. There was an operation for her to get her sight back, but at the last minute my mother's company fired her. Because my mother is a single parent, this was a huge blow to us, and I soon found myself with three roles to fulfill: caregiver, provider, and student. I got a second job to help with the bills and tried to squeeze in writing the chapter here and there. Then came the emergency trip to the hospital, where my mother was diagnosed with diabetes. My entire world fell apart that day, but thanks to huge amounts of support by my family and friends—especially Sareh—I found the strength to deal with everything. In short, I would like to thank everyone for being so patient waiting for the update of this story, and most of all, I would like dedicate this chapter to Sareh for being both a wonderful beta-reader and the greatest friend I could ever have.

And, if you're interested, check out the bottom of this chapter for **an official ****The Tortured**** contest**!

Beta-Reader's Notes: OMG. I want you all to stop and **actually read these notes**. I am a review hog, I know it… but when we get reviews cussing us out for not updating… well, it doesn't encourage me to beta-read any faster! I would like everyone to please take a look up there and see what sort of hand the world dealt Serenity, because she deserves all the sympathy and support she can get. That said… don't start blaming me for the slow updates! My sob story is not quite as terrible as hers, but I also work two jobs, and faithfully take 18 units at my university every semester. I have to maintain a 4.0 in order to keep my scholarship. No scholarship, no education. This year I was also bitten by a squirrel while I was hiking and had to undergo treatment for rabies. I'm struggling to make ends meet and I only get to beta-read on my breaks at work. When I've got to get through a chapter that is **FIFTY-SEVEN pages** long, it's bound to take a while.

Just some warnings: it may be helpful to **watch the Naruto filler episodes 178-179** before reading the chapter. I suppose I should also alert you to the hints of boy-love sprinkled throughout this chapter, as well as the "coarse" language… Aw, just have fun kiddies! And don't forget to **review**!

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**The Tortured**  
Chapter 4:  
_Catch Me when I Fall from Grace_  
By: Serenity Komoshiro  
Beta-read By: Sarehptar

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_Beyond all else, ninjutsu is the art of deception._

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Pain: raw, jagged—the taut pull of skin across her middle sent cold shivers flash-stepping along her spine.

_Where?_ There were quiet, angry voices whispering distantly. _How?_

And then, like the fatal strike of a kunai across her throat, awareness pounded in her temples. Leaf green eyes shot open, darting around the foreign room. Even as her eyeballs shifted in their sockets, the images came slowly to her brain, as if she were seeing everything through a sheet of water, slow and rippling.

"Alive." She almost did not recognize her own voice. It was hoarse and wavering, rasping from disuse. The word sounded more like senseless keening, more like a silent scream than her voice at all.

Alive. Somehow that knowledge did nothing to assuage the painful pressure building up inside her, settling like lead in her lungs. There was no joy at feeling her body again, all ten toes stiff but there, hands calloused and cut but still attached to her wrists…

She'd survived the battle, but that did not make it a victory.

In the world of shinobi—where all things were black and white, mission and vendetta—battles ended always in one of two ways. You won… or you lost.

She'd survived the battle, but that made her _defeat_ all the more dishonorable.

The thought seemed to strip away the very last vestiges of her strength, and Sakura could not even bring herself to brush off the rough blanket thrown over her body. Feeling returned slowly to her skin, and the chill of cold metal beneath bare shoulders told her that she was wearing little under the blanket. Somehow, she could not bring herself to care.

The shouting that Sakura had mistaken for distant voices became louder as her mind cleared, and she realized that it was a single voice, just outside the dim room where she had been healed.

"What the fuck were you thinking, un?!" Deidara's voice; Sakura thought about smiling, but couldn't find the will.

"And what would you have had me do?" The second voice was almost a whisper, so familiar and cold that Sakura felt the weight of it sticking in her veins and strangling her heart. Guilt like bile burned in her throat.

"You were _ten_ feet away Uchiha! She could have died, un!"

"A tool that fails to serve its master is worthless," Itachi murmured, and the words dug into Sakura's closed wounds like poisoned needles, corroding her from the inside out.

_I deserve them. I_ am _worthless to him…_

"She's a human being!" Deidara hissed, caustic and somehow more threatening than his shouting had been.

"No…" Itachi's muffled voice crawled over her bare skin like tendrils of ice. "She's a ninja."

There was a quiet cursing, and then the sound of almost silent footsteps. The muffled 'thok' of sandal heels in the stone hallway was achingly familiar, and Sakura knew it was not Deidara walking away.

For a moment, the pink-haired kunoichi was trapped between feeling terror and relief. Itachi had turned his back on her and walked away—but that also meant that she could prolong the inevitable, put off the scene where he would tell her she was a hindrance, better off dead than alive... Until Itachi himself cast her aside, Sakura could still _pretend_ to be his.

The door just out of her line of sight creaked open, but the kunoichi made no movement to watch Deidara enter the room.

"Sakura-chan?" he called, surprise plucking at the words. "You're already awake, un?"

She knew he was waiting to be acknowledged… but what could she say to him? Somehow _thank you_ seemed wrong. Finally, Sakura lifted a heavy hand and waved slowly.

Deidara crossed the room to look down at her, and feeling suddenly more self-conscious, Sakura pulled the rough blanket up to cover her bare collar bone. The motion was sluggish; her hand seemed to weigh down the limb like a brick.

"You were pretty messed up, un." Deidara seemed somehow more reserved, a little sharper in his motions, wasting no time to gesture. "Most of us thought you wouldn't make it."

_I wish I hadn't…_ Sakura couldn't stop the thought, but the defeated tone to it made her mouth turn sour.

Deidara poked her leg out of the way to make room on the table, and then perched on the cool metal surface, radiating mock nonchalance. "Hidan prayed for two days straight, un!" the blond ninja laughed. "Don't feel too grateful though. He was praying you'd die and meet Jashin—but I guess that's a compliment, coming from him, un..."

The Iwa-nin seemed to have regained some of his cheer, and a small smile lit on his face as he stared at her.

"Two days…" Sakura mused quietly, testing her voice again. It came at little stronger this time. "How long was I unconscious?"

"About a week, un."

"A week!" Disappointment swept through her, pushing hard against her heart. She couldn't even recover in a decent amount of time?

Deidara nodded in answer to her exclamation, his blue eyes darkening for a moment. "You almost died. If Konan-san hadn't been there, un…"

"Konan-san?" A flash of agony and blue hair in the moonlight suddenly flickered through Sakura's mind.

"She did some sort of weird technique with her paper to like... fill the hole in you, un," Deidara mused. "If she hadn't done that, you would have bled to death right there. The rest of us were pretty ragged too—Kakuzu barely had the chakra left to sew you up, un."

His half-smile shifted into an almost maniacal grin. "I could see right through you, and it looked like you'd been fighting on a lake of blood rather than the field, un…" Something almost sadistic glinted in his eyes. "Bones in the blood and black-stained grass blades cutting trails on your face and your eyes kept staring… It was a work of art, un."

Sakura was shivering—from pain or abhorrence, she didn't know.

"Konan-san carried you back here. We were all pretty surprised, un," the blond ninja blinked a few times. "Maybe she pitied you because you're a girl too?"

_Pity? Is that why I'm alive? I'm pitiful? _

Deidara shifted on the table, poking at her leg through the blanket again. "Do you think you're ready to get up and moving, un?"

"It won't hurt the stitches?" Sakura reached beneath the rough blanket to brush against her middle experimentally. There was a brief shock of pain, on top of the ache that had settled all over her, and she choked back a gasp.

"Those are Kakuzu's stitches, un," the artist laughed. "They're not coming out until _he_ wants them out."

In all reality, Sakura didn't want to get up. She didn't want to leave the quiet room, didn't want to see Itachi's beautiful Sharingan narrowed in displeasure and disgust… She didn't want to admit that she had failed, just after swearing to carve a place in Akatsuki for herself… But she forced a nod and said, "I'll need something for the pain."

"Got it here, un." Deidara carelessly tossed a nondescript plastic bottle to her. Sakura made no move to catch it, and it smacked into her chest and rolled down into the crook of her neck. "You'll need to be up by tomorrow," the Iwa-nin added.

"What for?" Sakura tried not to sound hopeless when she asked.

"The leader is sending Sasori-danna and I on a mission, un." Blue eyes sharpened, searching the pink-haired girl's face for a moment. "And he wants you to go with us."

Shock trapped Sakura in rigor mortis, focusing all her senses to needle fine points and driving away all thoughts of wounds—physical and mental.

_The leader… is sending_ me?

-))—((-

A hand was hovering near her shoulder, and Sakura's skin prickled before the touch ever came. She was instantly awake, keeping her eyes closed and breathing steady, so that she did not lose the element of surprise to the intruder.

"Sakura-chan…" the intruder called groggily.

Deidara. She relaxed quickly, opening sleep-blurred eyes to take in their room. "What time is it?" A delicate hand lifted to brush the sleep out of her eyes.

"Three in the morning, un," droned the Iwa-nin, clearly displeased. "We're leaving now."

Sakura swore, pushing herself out of their bed with only a little difficulty. The pain had been dulled yesterday, and the powerful pills she'd been taking had made the pull of the stitches distant pinpricks. She was capable of going on the mission, but that didn't mean she could win a fight—any fight—in her current state. Why was the leader sending her? What was the mission (Deidara had refused to tell her anything until they were on the way) and what could she offer to it?

Pushing that confusion aside, Sakura dressed as quickly as she could and trailed Deidara up the stairs in the cave's entrance chamber. A dark, hunchbacked form to the far right told Sakura that Sasori was already moving to join them. Distantly, she realized that they were not just leaving now—they were leaving _now_. Sakura mournfully brushed knots out of her hair with her fingers. The taste of sleep was thick and unpleasant in her mouth.

Sasori only nodded in greeting as they reached him, the tattered cloth over his mouth rustling quietly.

"Good morning," Sakura managed, scuffing her feet quietly in the dirt floor. Sasori, ever gruff, had always unsettled her. What did you say to a man who crawled on the ground like an insect?

"You've got the mission scroll, un?" Deidara was looking toward the cave's closed entrance, even while he spoke to Sasori. Rather than giving any coherent reply, Sasori just growled quietly and began to slither away.

Any hand seals the sand-ninja did must have been under the fold of his dark Akatsuki cloak, because the boulder guarding the entrance seemed to rise completely on its own, flooding the main chamber with silvery moonlight. The light glinted white on the water before the cave entrance, and momentarily Sakura forgot her troubles. A soft breeze, nippy with a taste of a warm winter, brushed against her as she started after Sasori.

The quiet swill of water pushed against her conscious like the beating of a heart or the tide of blood that had—she blinked away the thought, only to be assaulted again by the rustle of leaves in the trees, which sounded so much like the hollow brush of bone over cloth. Sakura clenched her eyes shut, furiously trying to drive the memory away before it took her over completely.

But in the darkness the moon was as pale as his skin, and the grass as green as his eyes.

_"Master Orochimaru needs me!"_ Desperation. Love. Necessity.

Somewhere in Sound, there was a boy feeling as helpless and worthless as she was. Had Orochimaru cast him aside? Was Kimimaro-kun hiding somewhere too, afraid—just like she was—to face his master?

Her hand, of its own accord, brushed over the long line of stitches through her middle. The press of cloth against the wound was a dull and distant pain, a quiet aching. She had wanted more than anything to win, to kill him—hadn't he felt the same?

It hadn't even been a battle between two ninja. It had been a war between two opposing dreams, their entire lives on the line in more than one way. And neither of them had won… Their mirror dreams had cracked and shattered into millions of tiny pieces, mixing together and skittering away and too small and sharp to put back together.

Pity pressed hard in Sakura's throat, and she quietly prayed that Orochimaru would forgive Kimimaro's failure. It was a prayer for the beautiful, fragile white-haired boy—but it was more of a prayer for herself.

_Don't let him… Don't let him… Give me one more chance…_

Dread like ice threatened to wrap around and crush her windpipe; Sakura swallowed heavily. What would she do if Itachi did tell her to leave him? There was nowhere else to go: she had been forced out of her family, betrayed her village, forsaken everyone but Uchiha Itachi.

If Sakura lost him… she had no one.

A warm hand dropped into her hair and ruffled it, making the pale pink strands even messier than before.

"Don't think so much, un," Deidara smiled. "Your face scrunches up like this—" he made a rather unappealing expression, looking like a cross between a pug dog and an angry cat.

Sakura laughed before she realized what she was doing, and the sound took her completely by surprise. That was a natural gift of Deidara's, she thought: utterly shocking everyone around him.

"Hey!" She pushed him grudgingly. "You haven't even told me where this mission is taking us."

"A relatively unknown ninja village called Hoshigakure." It was Sasori's gravelly voice that answered her question, and Sakura blinked twice at him.

"Hidden Star? I've never even heard of it," she mused.

Deidara snickered. "Yeah, neither has the rest of the world. Although they apparently have an alliance with Konoha, un…" He stared at her from the corner of his eye.

"Why would the leader send us on a mission there?" In the back of her mind, Sakura wondered if this wasn't just a busywork mission to get rid of her… but then why send two excellent Akatsuki members too? It didn't make sense at all and—

"Apparently the village is centered around a meteorite with strange properties that enhance chakra," Sasori droned disinterestedly.

"If the rumor's true…" Deidara's smirk was malevolent, "…we're going to liberate the rock, un."

A chakra-enhancing stone? The story sounded impossible—but something inside Sakura stirred, and she couldn't help but imagine having something like that. She could grow instantly stronger and… Like a burden being laid back on her shoulders, Sakura was suddenly reminded why she wanted—needed—to get stronger.

The silent forests of River Country passed by them slowly. With each step she took, Sakura felt the presence of their home boring into her back, felt as if she were chained to and dragging half the base behind her.

She hadn't said good-bye to him.

_Didn't say good-bye_, she whispered in her mind. _Didn't say good-bye, didn't say good-bye—won't ever say good-bye._

Deidara and the far off light of dawn walked on before her.

-))—((-

The blond ninja sighed to himself, taking some clay from his hip pouch into his hand, and letting the mouth in his palm chew it idly. His blue eyes darted between Hiruko's hunched form and Sakura, who trailed behind them, her green gaze distant and dull. The kunoichi ran a hand over her wound, a touch that had to do more with memory than pain.

Deidara didn't know what to do. It wasn't all that uncommon of a feeling for him, really, but now it frustrated him immensely.

He had known, the moment her green eyes had met his, down in that frigid medical room, that Sakura had changed. The girl who had woken up was colder somehow, as if all the soft air around her had become a raging gale. It was harder to stand near her now. There was a palpable sort of sadness, darkness clinging to her skin—seemed paler now—and shadows in her leaf-green eyes.

At first he thought it came only from her battle. Deidara bit his tongue (the one in his real mouth), choking back words that wouldn't have meant anything to her. She didn't want to hear him say everything was all right. She didn't want him to say that she had worth, that she had fought brilliantly

There was only one person she wanted to hear those words from.

Blood welled in his mouth, a sudden warmth, and Deidara realized belatedly that he'd bitten through the inside of his lip.

It'd didn't matter what he said to Sakura right now—until her _beloved_ Uchiha Itachi said them, the words wouldn't mean anything to her.

The blood turned bitter on his tongue.

_But she laughed_, he thought, half to console himself. It had not been the sweet, twinkling laugh she would have given him only a week ago. No, it was something more reserved, tinged with a wryness just like his own. Just like his own.

And then it buried in him like the cold steel point of a kunai. Sakura laughed like a murderer.

Even though she'd never told him, Deidara knew—with a sudden, striking intuition—that Sakura had never killed anyone in cold blood before that hellish night nine days ago. She was not Uchiha Itachi, that kin slayer; Deidara could not imagine any crime weighing down on her shoulders.

What would he have felt, in her place? To follow them onto a battlefield of blood and innocents… Deidara couldn't remember what his own first kills had felt like. He wasn't the type to care. He'd become a murderer because he _wanted_ to—Sakura had become a murderer to follow in their footsteps, to wear their cloak, to make that heartless Uchiha proud.

Her soul was red with blood, and her hands were black with it, and she was really and truly an Akatsuki member now.

Deidara sighed quietly to himself, and felt the sudden weight of Hiruko's eyes.

"She's holding us up," the sand-ninja muttered, in that typical gravelly voice.

"Do you remember the first person you ever killed, un?" Deidara asked, keeping his gaze even on the forest ahead of them.

"Of course." Deidara could feel the scorpion's smile, even if he couldn't see it. "I still have him with me."

The stone ninja didn't reply. He'd been expecting Sasori to say something like that, but it didn't make the differences between them and Sakura any less apparent.

"I think Sakura-chan's going to remember hers too, un."

With that, the blond doubled back to walk near the pink-haired girl's side. She made no effort to acknowledge him, or even start up a conversation. The thoughts running through her head obviously held all of her attention.

The silence pressed heavily on Deidara, and he resisted the urge to start chattering just to fill up the quiet. The sudden realization that he had no idea what to say to her tightened his throat. What did she need to hear? Consolation, some words of wisdom? He was not used to dealing with emotions like guilt or sadness—and was even at worse at handling emotions in _women_. (Sasori was always telling him he lacked tact, but…)

Well, he had to say _something_; the silence was starting to ring in his ears and make him fidgety.

"It looks like it's going to rain, un," he muttered to no one in particular. The statement was greeted only by silence for a long moment, before Sasori scoffed quietly, and Sakura gave something like a curt nod. _So much for that conversation starter_… Hiruko stilled on the path in front of them, and the beady-eyed puppet turned back to growl at them.

"It _is_ going to rain. We had best move faster." Without any other words, the hunched puppet leapt up and flickered through the trees lining the path.

Sakura did not hesitate to follow him, and she did not complain about Sasori's grumpy behavior like she normally would have. Crushing the urge to sigh again, Deidara leapt up into the branches and dashed after his comrades. Sakura's back was a taut black and red line in front of him, and the blond ninja couldn't help but hope this change wasn't permanent. He had liked the childish Sakura better…

He would have to say something, and it would have to be good. Good enough to jar Sakura out of her own thoughts, good enough to repair her—Deidara thought of shattered glass and so many glittering shards—he couldn't handle the oppressive silence radiating from their pink-haired companion for much longer.

That bloody Uchiha would probably like Sakura quiet and dimmed, but her vibrant cheer had amused Deidara. Sakura had acted as though she wasn't living with a band of murders. She had treated them almost like… a family? He chuckled dryly to himself. _A family? Akatsuki?_ The organization wasn't a family, even by the most fucked up of definitions. They were hunters of power, wary allies, occasional comrades... They were not even friends.

But Sakura had smiled, and Deidara had thought…

Minutes ticked away as steadily as their feet pounding against tree bark, and hours rolled as quickly as the blue rivers they followed across the countryside. Behind thick clouds, the sun had crawled across the sky, and just as it touched the horizon to the west, the black thunderheads high above crackled with lightning and rain began to fall softly on the forest below. No one spoke, even when the rain began to seep through their cloaks and run down their faces like tears.

Then Hiruko's beady eyes turned to catch Deidara's gaze, and the blond Iwa ninja knew immediately the message his partner was sending. His own blue eyes peered back to survey Sakura. With each leap, the girl was falling farther and farther behind them. Her injuries had been terrifying and though they had been healing well, she was not ready for the strain of the constant running they'd been doing the entire day.

At last, Hiruko called for them to stop. Deidara knew the area they were in immediately. They were near the border of the country, but the ground they had covered today had been pitiful in comparison to what they should have gone… Deidara hadn't realized how much they had slowed to accommodate Sakura. The blond artist swept his stoic Sand partner with an evaluating stare. Sasori hadn't mentioned anything to _Sakura_ about how she was holding them up. In fact, Sasori hadn't even asked her to speed up. And Sasori hated waiting!

Deidara struggled and failed to keep a smirk off his face. Apparently he hadn't been the only one to appreciate Sakura's old cheer.

The soil around a giant oak nearby had eroded away, leaving a deep hollow beneath the giant tree's roots. It was large enough to hold them all comfortably out of the rain, and Deidara decided they would make camp there for the night. There was no sense in continuing when Sakura looked as if she might fall down at any given moment.

Flicking a signal to the pink-haired girl that was clearly understood, Deidara turned back again to survey his partner. As Sakura slipped into the hollow below the tree, blue eyes met Hiruko's beady black irises. It was a testament to how well they knew each other that Deidara did not have to say anything—Sasori knew immediately what he wanted to do, and the Sand ninja scoffed.

"Hrhm," Hiruko growled, weighing the costs of agreeing to his partner's unspoken plea or staying out in the rain. Wordlessly, the puppet master gave in, and leapt back into the trees, intending to search for dry firewood.

The clay artist turned his attention back to Sakura then. The green-eyed kunoichi had made her way into the cave-like hollow, and he could barely make out her form. It looked like she was brushing the wind-born knots out of her shoulder-length hair. Pink glinted dully in the grey air.

Feeling as if he was stalling, Deidara turned his face up to the slowly dripping canopy above. He mentally counted how long it would take to reach Hoshigakure. The border of Bear Country was another day's travel away with good weather. If the storm didn't let up by tonight, it would take double the time to get there. Not to mention that Sakura would not be able to keep up if they tried to set a harsh pace… Deidara sighed himself. No matter how he looked at it, it would at least two days before they reached their destination.

Two days with a stone-quiet Sakura and a grouchy Sasori did not sound appealing at all. Knowing that standing outside was not getting him any nearer to helping the once cheerful kunoichi, Deidara forced himself to slide down into the hollow beneath the roots of the tree, and face his small companion.

-))—((-

Sakura's senses prickled the second Deidara moved into their shelter. She knew without having to think that Deidara was alone. Just as well… the girl didn't want to have to look at Sasori's frustrated face any longer than she had to.

Hugging her knees, Sakura pressed her back against the root wall of the hollow. Deidara said nothing as her approached her, and didn't even try to talk to her as he settled next to her on the dirt floor.

"Hnnn," the Iwa-nin grumbled, and Sakura got the feeling he was searching for words. She braced herself, sure that he was going to tell her to go back to the base, sure he was going to say she was as useless as she felt, a hindrance…

After what seemed like hours the blonde finally inhaled deeply and parted his lips to speak.

"Its raining, un."

Sakura jerked where she sat, unable to believe her ears. Of all the things she had been expecting, something as painfully obvious as that was hardly it. Was he mocking her? Did he think she didn't know? That she needed to be coddled, worked into the serious conversation gently? It was not as if she would shatter if he dropped her. For a moment, Sakura crushed flares of anger inside of herself. How dare—anyone!—treat her like some porcelain doll, too fragile to hear the harsh truths that everyone else knew just by looking?

She was a shinobi. Itachi-sama had said so. She was not a doll, not a girl, not a…

"Yeah, it is raining." Sakura's answer was blunt, as blunt as she'd expected it to sound, but she winced when Deidara pulled away a bit from her in surprise. It seemed like he expected a softer reply.

Sakura was tired of being soft. Still, she couldn't quite shake the tiniest bit of guilt as Deidara blinked, half-shocked, at her. Her own green eyes focused and refused to move off her worn ninja sandals. Under her critical gaze, a single strand of black thread, poking out of the neat stitching, became stunningly clear.

It was trying so hard to hide among the rest of the perfect black stitches, but the longer she stared at it, the less and less it seemed to fit. _One tight loop, two loops, three…_ And then that last piece of string, dangling out, barely attached to anything at all, so useless…

She was as thin and broken as the thread. She was trying so hard to blend into Akatsuki, trying so hard be a part of them, but in when it came down to it, she was just another loose end. She was another slipped stitch and nothing could—

"You'll need to sew that back in, un." Deidara's sudden murmur caught the girl off guard.

The Iwa-ninja leaned half over her, inspecting the protruding thread. Her gaze snapped up to meet his own almond-shaped stare. His blue eyes were open and calm, while a small smile danced across his lips. Recovering from her surprise, Sakura looked back down to the slowly drying sandal, dark against the pale skin of her foot.

"No." She pulled against the thread, feeling it catch and strain. "I'll just cut it off."

Her slender hand buried itself in her hip holster, brushing the edges of kunai and shuriken carefully, not enough to cut the skin. A sudden grip stilled her fingers; she could feel the flutter of lips against the back of her hand. Deidara's skin was cool against her own.

"If you cut out even one stitch, the rest will slip. One by one, they'll come undone. Everything will fall apart, un." Deidara's voice was a low whisper, meant only for her ears and meaning so much more. "Why buy a new sandal when this one fits you so well?"

_When this one fits you so well…_ Oh gods, how she wished that was true. It was all she wanted and she wanted it so badly and why was one her one desire so far out of her reach, and what could she…

Inside Sakura, the wall she had erected between her heart and the world cracked and crumbled.

The kunoichi bit deeply into her own lip to stop the welling of water in her eyes. She hadn't cried since that day, wouldn't ever cry again—this was just something in her eye. Dust. Her desperate effort went in vain as a single droplet slide over the rim of her eye, over dark eyelashes, and pressed a warm trail down her cheek.

Deidara has said that she belonged with them. Even after she had failed so badly, even after Itachi-sama… She choked on the thought. Even after she had held them up on this mission, he still saw some value in her?

Deidara, who was becoming a precious companion to her, had valued Sakura enough to treat her this way…

A sudden warmth on her cheek—not the teardrop—shocked her out of her thoughts. Deidara's calloused hand brushed against her cheek, and the pink tongue in his palm licked the saltwater tear from her skin.

"Ew!" Sakura cried through sudden laughter. She shoved the clay artist away and rubbed earnestly at her cheek. "That's gross!"

"Thanks, un. You're making me feel so good about myself." Deidara's remark was so sarcastic, Sakura couldn't help but grin sheepishly.

And just like that, something inside Sakura fell back into place, stronger than before—as if she had never been broken at all. Even if it was only to Deidara, she meant something. And for right now, until she was strong enough to redeem herself, that would be good enough.

The Iwa-ninja seemed to perk up at her sudden change in mood, and his wary smile became an all-out evil smirk. Instantly, both his hands (and their mouths) where snaking about, trying to get near to Sakura again.

"Eeehhh!" the kunoichi squealed, half in fear and half holding back a relieved gale of laughter. She wiggled away from the icky tongues in his hands and was almost ready to get up and start running when a familiar chakra signature suddenly stilled them both.

Sasori's hunched body clambered into the hollow. The puppet master stopped and quirked a thin black eyebrow at their odd position.

"Heh!" Deidara tucked both hands behind his back like he expected to be scolded for messing around. The scorpion only shook his head and lumbered further into their camp.

Sakura noticed that not only was his thick Akatsuki cloak completely soaked—she winced, feeling suddenly guilty that neither of them had told the Sand ninja to come inside—and that he was carrying something under his cloak, crawling across the ground one-handed.

The scorpion-like man dumped a pile of branches and timber onto the floor of the hollow and moved back, a clear sign that one of them would have to do the work to light the fire. He'd done more than enough for their sorry asses already… Deidara stared at the sticks in contemplation, as if sizing up a project. Sensing a great deal of trouble—and a most unwelcome explosion—Sakura stepped in. It was true that their journey had worn her body out, but that didn't mean she didn't have the chakra do something as simple as this.

Flashing through a short set of hand seals, an effectively aimed fire jutsu lit the timber pile aflame. The light instantly brightened the gloomy, cave-like area, and heat slowly rolled off the growing blaze.

"Can you tell me more about the mission, Sasori-san?" Sakura's voice broke in, and if Sasori was surprised by her sudden renewed interest, he didn't show it. Instead, his hunched bulk simply settled against the root wall, and he began to talk, in that gravelly tone of his, about the mission.

"A meteorite fell several hundred years ago at the site where the village now rests. They focused their training and nation around this meteorite, and took the name Hoshigakure. All of the ninja of the village trained around the meteor and purportedly experienced incredible increases in their chakra," Sasori droned, sounding utterly uninterested in story. Sakura's eyes darted to observe Deidara, whose expression had darkened with excitement.

"And how exactly are we going to get this rock?" She looked between her two companions, wary of any idea Deidara might suggest. There were bound to be explosions involved in this somehow…

It was Sasori who answered her first. "The Sandaime Hoshikage has apparently left his seat." There was no little contempt in the words when the scorpion said them, and Sakura felt the barest flash of confusion. Hoshikage? There were only five kage in the world, and "Hoshi" wasn't one of them… "Now will be an excellent time to infiltrate the village."

"Sasori-danna and I have got it all figured out, un," Deidara chimed in suddenly. Sakura wondered briefly when he had the chance to talk with his partner about the mission. "We'll all enter the village as refugees, un!" The grin on the Iwa-nin's face was almost disconcerting. "We'll say our village was destroyed by shinobi from one of the big nations—Hidden Star is totally against the big nations, so they'll eat our story for dessert, un." The blond's hands clenched as if in anticipation.

"We'll be civilians fleeing the destruction of our homes. In the rush to escape, of course, our identification was all forgotten or lost. We were simple craftsmen prior to the senseless destruction of our homes," Sasori continued, "a fact which the Iwa brat and I will have no problem proving." From the corner of her eye, Sakura watched Deidara toss a clay spider carelessly up and down.

"There will be nothing about an older brother, his young sister, and their family friend seeking refugee that would illicit suspicion from the villagers," the scorpion finished.

"I see. I'm the little sister… Deidara doesn't really look like me though, will we be able to pass him off as my brother without genjutsu?"

Deidara laughed darkly, as if he found something about that statement incredibly funny. "I'm not going to be your brother, un! Sasori-danna is."

Sakura's mind went completely blank for a good minute. There was no way—

"Deidara," she managed, "how old are you?"

"Fifteen, un," the Iwa-nin blinked.

"And how old is Sasori-san?" She couldn't quite bring herself to ask the scorpion himself that question. She rather liked all her limbs attached.

"You're like fifty now, aren't you, un?" the blond questioned his partner shamelessly. Whether the query frustrated him, or whether he just wouldn't give into their antics, Sasori decided not to answer. He simply _stared_ in their direction.

"I understand that he's supposed to be my _older_ brother, but… isn't that age difference a little unbelievable?" Sakura tried her hardest not to sound insulting. Though honestly—who was going to believe she, an almost-twelve-year-old was related to an ugly old man who crawled around on all fours?!

As if reading her thoughts, the puppet master turned his sharp gaze on Sakura. "Don't worry, everything will be ready in the morning." Deidara nodded along, absolutely sure of their plan. Sakura, on the other hand, had obvious doubts, for very obvious reasons.

"All right, if you say so…" Her voice was wavering a little. Deidara chuckled at her concern. Really, there was nothing to worry about. Their plan would unfold perfectly in two days' time.

"I'll take first watch," Sasori's gravelly voice said. "Get some sleep…imouto." Sakura cringed as the Sand-nin called her _little sister_, but only slightly. And she could have sworn she saw a flicker of amusement in the scorpion's eyes at her unease...

Giving a nod to acknowledge his agreement to guard, Sakura turned to Deidara and told the blond she'd take middle watch. Her back settled against the woody root wall and her eyelids slowly came to a close. She steadied her breathing to allow her body to relax and slid silently into sleep.

-))—((-

The morning of their third day dawned considerably brighter than the last two had been. Rays of sunlight streamed through the opening of the cave where they had settled last night. Sakura stretched slowly, working out the kinks in her neck and the stiffness in her legs that could only have come from long days of strenuous running. The wound in her middle tinged, but it wasn't so terrible that she couldn't ignore it. Idly, Sakura reminded herself to thank Kakuzu and Konan the next time she saw them.

Awake enough now to survey the cavern around her, Sakura noticed immediately that Sasori was missing entirely and Deidara was near the cave's entrance, digging through a bag she did not remember him having before.

"Good morning." Her voice was scratchy with sleep. Deidara waved dismissively, not even turning to get a look at her.

"We're about two hours from the border of Bear, un."

The pink-haired girl joined him at the entrance to the cave, lifting her face to take in the cold light of the winter dawn. The sky was an exquisite shade of peach and orange, banded by pink and fading blue. There was not a single plume of cloud staining the painted sky.

_Good fortune_, Sakura thought. It had long been her superstition that no clouds meant no troubles.

The second of calm silence was broken when a tan dress was pushed under her nose.

"What… is this?" the kunoichi murmured as she took it cautiously from Deidara's hand.

"It's your disguise, un. Sasori-danna and I made it last night. I think it perfectly fits the part of a poor girl with no money, no future, and no taste!" the blond sing-songed. Sakura grimaced in his general direction. Normally Deidara's interest in art was entertaining… but no taste? Geesh, that was taking the disguise a little too far.

"Thanks Deidara…" she sighed, eying the colorless lump of cloth unenthusiastically. "I'd like to change now, so leave."

Deidara looked like he was holding back a scandalous comment, and his cheeky smirk wasn't helping any. "It's not like I haven't seen it before, un."

"Deidara, I will hit you. I will hit you hard."

To reinforce her point, Sakura brandished a single curled fist. That was more than enough for the Iwa ninja. He knew exactly how heavy her punches were, and in the interest of self-preservation, he scuttled as quickly as possible out of cave.

Forcing herself to just get it over with, Sakura slid off her heavy Akatsuki cloak (not as heavy as it should have been—the fight with Kimimaro had tattered the once proud cloth) and wormed her way free of her shirt. It was best to leave her shorts on, Sakura snickered. Flashing your enemy with your undergarments wasn't always an effective defense.

At last, when she'd pulled the beige dress on, Sakura gave in and inspected the costume. It was less hideous than she'd expected, and that was a welcome relief. It actually sat well on her, falling just above her knees and fitting snugly around her shoulders. Even the clay-like color was less appalling when she looked at it now. It made her skin seem smooth and lighter. It was still very plain, but now she noticed a cloth flower sewed just under her collarbone. The flower was a deep brown, and really looked more dead than anything else…

Either the wilted blossom was meant to be some grand image of innocent lost—or Deidara was stuck in a creative slump.

At least the dress wasn't a sack. As she bent gingerly and folded her Akatsuki cloak, the tan dress's flexible material moved with her. All right, it _was_ a fashion nightmare, but it probably wouldn't hinder her if push came to shove, and she did have to give it that.

The tap of her sandals on the dirt floor of the cave seemed to echo before her, and Deidara had already turned to survey her new look by the time she got outside.

She had to resist the urge to snort, looking at _his_ "disguise". The artist had dressed himself in faded blue pants and an even more faded grey top. The pants had patches at the knees and the shirt bagged off in an utterly unappealing way. The entire thing just screamed "peasant!"

"And you said_ I_ had no taste!" she teased, moving to lean against a nearby tree.

"It's for the mission, un." He had a long-suffering look on his face.

In a move she had not expected, the artist reached up and tugged the tie from his hair. A cascade of gold danced and caught the morning light, and for a moment Sakura thought of halos and angels and the girl who reminded her of cosmos.

Two hands—bandaged to hide the mouths in their palms—slid around the back of Deidara's neck and slowly freed the blond strands trapped under his ratty shirt.

It was not as if she'd never seen his hair before. It was just that she had never really seen it _this_ way; Deidara made a habit of keeping his hair tucked inside his Akatsuki robe, or trapped in a neat little bun when he went to sleep. Now it fell unbound to his waist, a wash of liquid saffron that begged her fingers to run through it.

It made him look softer somehow, ephemeral and serene.

"…What are you staring at, un?"

"N-Nothing!" Sakura squeaked—but when he made a move to tie his hair back up, she stopped him. "Leave it down? It looks nice."

For a long moment he stared at her silently, visible blue eye shifting from confusion to some entrancing emotion she could not name. Her throat felt suddenly tight and her hands stilled at the hem of her dress.

"If you two are finished?"

The kunai was in Sakura's hand before she was aware of grabbing it. Instantly, leaf green eyes searched out and settled on an intruder. Sakura slipped into a defensive position.

Standing across the small hollow was a young man with ginger hair and a soft, vacant smile. He was (Sakura couldn't help but think) very beautiful. Skin as pale and smooth as porcelain was framed by the partly-curled strands of his hair, and under a brush of bangs, half-lidded mahogany eyes shown with unveiled cunning. Sakura could see that the stranger was slender and fit, despite the fact that his ragged clothes bagged off him in a most unattractive fashion. Her gaze darted down to his hands in an instinctive check for weapons.

His hands were empty of blades, innocent and delicate-looking at his sides. But that was awfully familiar purple nail polish…

"Sasori-danna!" Deidara crowed happily.

Sakura's jaw dropped. _That's Sasori?!_

The ungainly scorpion-like body was gone, replaced with… well, it was like comparing wasps and flowers. The boy before them—he really was a boy, definitely no older than Deidara—looked as fragile as a lotus, a thousand degrees different from the hunched monster of before.

"S-Sasori-san?" Sakura couldn't help but stare in obvious confusion. "But… how… what… huh?"

"Hiruko is a _hitokugutsu_," the boy—_Sasori, Sasori!_ Sakura reminded herself—offered. His voice was quiet and low, almost dream-like. Sakura got so caught up listening that she almost failed to process his words.

_Hitokugutsu_? A human puppet? Sakura turned the words over in her head, unsure of their meaning. Deidara chose that moment to cut in.

"That's his art, un." There was a quiet sort of scoff in the Iwa ninja's voice. "He kills people and turns them into puppets."

For a long minute, there was silence. The pink-haired kunoichi had no idea what to say. At last, she settled for the very intelligent: "Oh."

"I know! Complete kitsch, un!" Deidara nodded in a sage-like way, oblivious to Sasori's growing scowl. "I can't believe he calls _that_ art…"

In retrospect, Sakura would later think, it was very much like a dam bursting. One moment they had been calmly discussing their partner's sudden change, and the next second both of the boys were consuming in a hail of insults and ranting that Sakura could barely understand.

"You wouldn't know art if it bit you in the ass," the Sand ninja snarled.

"You wish art would bite you in the ass, un!" Deidara snapped back.

"Oh, very clever. Because _regurgitating_ ideas always was your forte—ah," Sasori smiled, "I should say your lack of forte."

"You shouldn't project _your_ failures on to me, un. We all know I've got more forte in one finger than all your ugly wooden bodies put together." Deidara crossed his arms over his chest and nodded sharply.

"Ugly?! How dare you, you impenitent brat! You have no conception of beauty! Those irritating fireworks of yours fade in seconds—five minutes later, I've already forgotten about them."

Sakura heard Deidara mutter something that sounded suspiciously like "That's because you're senile, un!" but Sasori barreled on without pause, as prickly as a scorpion backed into a corner.

"There is nothing enduring about your 'art', nothing that lingers in the mind or lends significance—elegance—to those tacky sculptures of yours. How can you even call it art? It leaves no lasting impression!"

"Oh, I'll show you what kind of impression it can leave…" the blond threatened. Sasori lifted his hands, fingers crooked and splayed in warning.

"Ummm…" Sakura's attempt to intervene went completely unnoticed.

"Art isn't about lasting forever, un! Art is about the moment—that one moment of beauty that you appreciate only because you know it won't last," Deidara growled. "Art is about the revelation! Your whole damn existence crushed into one second where you can't breath, think, where the whole world collapses into this tiny point of explosion and you feel _alive_."

"You were raised in a school of idiots," Sasori stabbed. "What is the point of feeling alive for a single moment? That just means in the next moment you lose everything you labored for. True art is that which lasts forever, which holds, proves the value of your existence through _centuries_."

Sakura felt not only ignored, but also completely lost. Involuntarily, she thought back to the time when she'd taken Deidara's "danna" to mean that he was married to his partner. The pink-haired girl was very suddenly reminded of old biddies badgering their equally old husbands in the Konoha marketplace.

"Art is fleeting, un!" Deidara was shouting in his partner's face by now.

"Art is eternal!" Sasori had no problem snapping back.

Sakura could not hold back giggles any longer—and that was the wrong move.

"Sakura-chan!"

"Sakura!"

Both boys rounded on her with determined glares and unrelenting scowls. The pressure of their combined gaze made Sakura feel like someone had dropped the Hokage mountain on her shoulders. It didn't help that Deidara was flushed with rage, his hair flying freely about, or that Sasori looked ruffled, passionate, and pretty.

"Ummm, y-yes?" she managed.

"Which art is _real_ art, un?" Deidara's single visible eye was narrowed into a cobalt slit.

"Yes, maybe another opinion would make this idiot see the error of his ways," Sasori almost laughed.

_Oh God…I have to choose?! _Sakura looked between the two of them desperately. _Well Sakura,_ she sighed to herself, _it's been a good ride. You've lived a decent life these past years; time to pick your way to end it. Going out with bang, or becoming a life-sized doll?_ Neither option seemed appealing.

"Uhh, I…" she hedged, "I think… they're ummm… _both_ nice?"

Distant bird chirping was the only sound to stir the stone cold silence that descended on them. Deidara turned to Sasori, and the two shared a look that could only be described as utterly _scandalized_.

"Well, you're not an artist—" Deidara started.

"—so of course you wouldn't understand," Sasori finished.

Argument completely forgotten, the two ninja launched into a mutual grievance about the sheer blindness of the non-artistic. They were, Sakura sighed again, off in some little world all of their own.

It was only when the pair started off through the trees that Sakura realized she was about to be left behind. Snatching up the canvas bag that had held their disguises, she trudged after them.

Watching the swill of Deidara's hair and the dancing movements of Sasori's hands, she suddenly felt as if there was wall of glass growing up between them. For the boys, this—the mission, the battle, the disagreement—was an ingrained as breathing. They had a routine, existences each built around living with the other. She knew the feeling: a sense of closeness, of comfort that came with knowing and trusting the person at your back. Deidara and Sasori bickered a lot, but when it came down to it, they were partners, just like she was—_used to be_—partners with Itachi. The sudden emptiness, the lack of his presence at her side was an ache that settled along the dark stitches across her middle.

Unlike the wound, the hole left by Itachi's departure would never be filled again, would it?

All of the sudden, Sakura felt tacked on, like an intruder in Deidara and Sasori's perfectly stable—all right, maybe _stable_ was stretching it—team. She didn't belong with them anymore than she belonged with any of the other Akatsuki members; she was not an artist, not a born and bred killer…

Sakura just didn't fit in with anyone—not even the Haruno family had wanted her.

"Oy, Sakura-chan, hurry and catch up!"

Deidara smiled at her from over his shoulder.

-))—((-

As they trudged through the frost-bitten evergreen woods (Sasori insisted they walk, in case the area was patrolled by Star ninja) Sakura turned the plan over and over in her head. She would have to be a strong actress if they were going to pull this off. The green-eyed kunoichi couldn't really remember a time where she had needed to _act_ before. She'd always been straightforward and truthful. Even when she and Itachi had traveled together, Sakura always avoided talking to keepers of the inns they stayed at, for fear of giving away she and Itachi's true nature.

The tree-line finally began to thin, and Sakura's stomach turned with nerves. What if she slipped up and gave away the plan or made the Star ninja suspicious? What if her injuries caused her to hold back Deidara or Sasori?

"We're here." The scorpion's soft voice suddenly at her side made Sakura jump, but she quickly turned her attention to the stretch of emptiness in front of them. An almost endless ravine split the land, and for meters on either side of the abyss, all the plant life had died, leaving only bare stone.

"This is the border of Bear, un," Deidara muttered to her. "The gorge is full of toxic fumes that'll kill you if you breathe them in too long."

The cloud of yellow fog floating in the ravine seemed far more ominous than it had a few seconds ago.

"Are we going to fly over?" Sakura whispered back to the Iwa ninja.

"They have guards placed strategically around the border of this tiny country," Sasori murmured. "If we tried to fly over, it would constitute intruding, and we would be attacked."

"Then what are we going to do?" Sakura looked between the boys anxiously.

"Watch." Deidara grinned. "Hey! Helllooo! Anybody there, un?" He waved his arms over his head with almost undue desperation. "Hellllooooo?" His voice echoed through the gorge and into the woods on to the other side. "We need some help, un!"

For a long minute, silence was their only answer. And then—Sakura tensed—an arrow shot from the shrubs on the other side of the gorge, grazed the sleeve of Deidara's outstretched arm, and buried deep in the trunk of a tree behind the Akatsuki party.

Almost immediately, the blond artist started flailing. "Wahhhh!" He leapt away from the arrow as if it actually frightened him. Realizing nearly too late that they were supposed to be acting, Sakura threw a nervous look across her face. The faked look grew quickly more real as Sasori threw himself in front of her, raising a protective arm between his "little sister" and any possible danger.

"Hey!" Deidara was complaining across the ravine, "You mind not shooting us, un?!"

There was movement in the shrubs across the gorge, and Sakura forced herself not to follow the lightning quick pacing of the ninja who had fired at them. Any indication that Sakura could read their movements would give her away as a shinobi—and ruin the invasion plan.

Instead, she gawked from behind Sasori, darting leaf green eyes in every direction in mock terror.

Their wait was not a long one. After a few moments, a second arrow (this time with a rope trailing behind it) shot across the ravine and buried itself deep into the wood of a tree trunk. The rope pulled taut just as dark blur burst from the bushes on the other side and landed—perfectly balanced—on the makeshift bridge. Sakura could sense the Chakra being used to glue the Star ninja's feet to the rope, but she pretended to be astounded.

"Who are you? What are you seeking?" the Star ninja demanded. His face swept over all three of them, most likely taking in their hideous clothing.

Discreetly, Sakura took the time to assess him too. He was large, but not did not sound particularly old. The pink-haired kunoichi estimated him to be two or three years older than Deidara at most. The gas mask he was wearing obscured his face, making Sakura uneasy. Having trained with Itachi for so long, she knew the importance of reading her opponents' eyes.

In the Star ninja's hand was crossbow, a mark of poor weapons training. Sakura scoffed mentally. No skilled shinobi would be caught with a handicap like that. If he couldn't throw a kunai the distance across the ravine, he was barely worthy of being called a ninja to begin with.

Sakura struggled to keep all hints of contempt off of her face, and finally, Sasori moved to answer the Star ninja's questions.

"My name is Uso Hotaru," the Sand ninja said, in a voice tinged with false weariness and hardship. "My young sister—" Sakura peered out nervously from behind him, "—our friend—" Deidara "hmph"ed and glared at the ninja in front of them, clearly still faking offense at his brush with the arrow, "—and I have traveled days searching for signs of life… for any hope of refuge."

Sakura resisted the urge to giggle at their melodramatic cover story. _And it only gets worse… _

Sasori, with a staggering amount of discipline and patience, continued. "We came from Akinobara Village, west of here. A week ago, shinobi flooded our streets and began to massacre everyone in sight. They set fire to the market and to our homes."

The scorpion ninja paused, training his heavy mahogany gaze on the Star shinobi's masked face. "Our village was a peaceful trading town. We didn't train ninja or require protection from the ninja villages surrounding us… but still—!"

The sudden anger took Sakura by surprise, in that it seemed so real. Sasori, she decided, was a force to be reckoned with. She would never trust his expressions again, after seeing him fake hatred and desolation with such ease.

"I don't know why they did it—"

Deidara stomped his foot down hard. "Those bastards just didn't like it that we didn't need them! Iwagakure thinks it owns the whole world, un!" Sakura bit down hard on the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling. Deidara's loathing was hardly faked at all—the Stone Nation had stifled his creative spirit for one year too many.

"When we saw what was happening to the village, Taro and I took Azami—" Sakura perked up as Sasori dropped her code name, "—and ran. We were artisans… everything we owned we kept in our place at the market. I watched it burn, though we had done nothing to upset the shinobi village. Our money, our home… we lost it all in a single moment."

"We didn't have anything, damn it!" Deidara chimed in. Sakura nodded nervously along, still keeping her half-cower behind the Sand ninja.

"We've been wandering desperately for three days. Please, do you know where we could find shelter and something to eat?"

It was the false anxiety on Sasori's young face that drove their story home, and the Star ninja's wariness wavered for a moment.

"Outsiders are not permitted in the Hidden Star village…"

"There's a village here?" Deidara perked up like a dog being offered a bone.

"Y-Yes," the Star ninja stumbled as he realized his own error, "but you are not allowed to—"

"Please!" Sakura pushed her way out from behind Sasori and curled her hands tight over her heart. Her knees turned in; she raised her shoulders and bit her bottom lip gingerly, becoming in an instant the picture of innocence: small and sweet. Both the scorpion and Deidara moved quickly to hide their surprise.

"Please!" Sakura's girlish voice wavered with false timidity. "We didn't have anything to eat… My brother gave me everything he could. Please let us come to your village! I don't want my big brother to starve… He's the only one I have left…"

"And what about me, un?" Deidara grumbled under his breath.

The Star ninja heaved a palpable sigh, shifting his masked gaze over them once more as if gauging their verity. At last, he slumped where he balanced on the rope. "I'll discuss it with the village leader. Wait here."

As the Star ninja flickered back through the shrubs on the far side of the ravine, Sakura turned to Sasori, and in her sweetest (and most carrying voice) said, "Yay! Now you and Taro-kun won't have to eat grass just to survive!"

Sakura swore she saw the Star ninja flinch.

"All right!" The kunoichi let her pretend anxiety melt away when she was sure the Star ninja and any of his possible comrades had gone from the area. "They'll probably fall for that, right? But… what do we do if they don't let us in?"

Sasori's eyelids lowered once, heavily, and the serene look on his face somehow took on a deadly air. "Then we will resort to Plan B."

"Plan B?" Sakura blinked.

"We bomb the hell out of them," Deidara grinned, "and pick the rock out of the rubble."

It was a testament to how much Sakura had changed that "Plan B" did not shock her in the slightest. What did surprise her was that the only reason she preferred "Plan A" to "Plan B" was that "Plan A" required less effort and involved far less dirt.

They did have to deliberate long. Sakura felt a sudden bloom of Chakra and looked up from where she'd been analyzing escape options with Deidara. The Star ninja had returned, and this time with three other ninja in tow. The pink-haired kunoichi noticed Sasori stiffen the slightest amount. And then she saw it: the way the other ninja deferred to the man standing in the middle, the stately way he stepped… Sakura stared blatantly. How tiny was this village that they'd send their leader out to inspect three asylum seekers? Apparently Deidara was interested as well, because he stole a meaningful glance in Sasori's direction.

The Star village leader was tall but slender, and unlike the other Star shinobi, he did not wear a gas mask, which allowed Sakura to survey his face. High cheek bones gave the leader's face a hollow, corpse-like look; the flatness of the dark blue eyes above his cheeks furthered the image. His thin lips crooked in a half-smile, but to Sakura, everything about the man screamed _two-faced_. Even the moon pale strands of his hair concealed his real age.

It took a sizeable number of minutes to explain their story again, and then came an agonizing period of silence while the navy-eyed Star ninja inspected and decided their fates.

At last, just when Sakura was sure they'd be turned away, the Star village leader snapped his fingers. Immediately, the two ninja that had accompanied him sprang into action. The first drew out the large summoning scroll that had been attached to his back. With a flick of thick wrists, the scroll unwound across the ground. Sakura caught flashes of black lettering, but none of the characters were ones she knew. Nevertheless, the green-eyed girl struggled to keep her body from tensing up as tightly as her mind was.

With deft ease, the two Star ninja flashed through a series of hand seals and then simultaneously slammed their palms down on the summoning scroll. In a burst of chakra and smoke, a line of the gorge before them became a suspended wooden bridge. It swayed in the minimal breeze, but the stakes that anchored to either side of the ravine seemed sturdy.

The pale-haired man smiled in a way that reminded Sakura of Orochimaru.

"I am Akahoshi, coordinator of this, the Hidden Star ninja village. It would be our utmost pleasure to offer you refuge." His voice was slick as oil and just as unpleasant. Sakura did not like it in the slightest, and suddenly this mission seemed degrees more difficult than it had only moments before. Akahoshi was no kind-hearted, altruistic citizen—she would have to keep close watch on him. All her senses prickled as she looked at his glass marble eyes, and a niggling feeling that Akahoshi had ulterior motives for letting them enter the village would not leave her.

The reassuring warmth of Deidara standing beside her cut off abruptly as the blond raced—at a civilian's pace—toward the bridge. "A bed! A real bed, un!"

The Star ninja stiffened as Deidara came their way, and disguised the motion poorly. Only Akahoshi remained unflinching while the blond artist clattered over their summoned bridge.

Playing the part of a soft-spoken young sister, Sakura followed Sasori like a puppy on a leash. Almost too late, it occurred to her that an ordinary girl might be scared of crossing a rickety rope bridge over a gapping abyss of toxic fumes.

Sakura froze like a frightened rabbit. Sasori took a few more steps before he noticed she had not followed him onto the bridge.

"Azami…" Sasori's voice was colored with practiced exasperation. "What's wrong?"

"I'm scared!" Sakura clung tight to the bridge post and refused to step any further. Her green eyes clenched shut.

Offering an apologetic look to their Star escorts, Sasori crossed back to where Sakura hunched away from the bridge. "Azami…" he called her false name with equally false patience. "It's perfectly safe. Taro-kun got across fine."

"But…" She half-opened one eye to stare at him. "What if a wind comes and blows it away? I'm scared!"

Sasori's smile looked painted onto his face. "I promised to protect you."

'Azami' nodded slowly. "But…"

"I'll hold your hand, all right?" With his back to the Star ninja, Sasori let his mahogany eyes show dry amusement. Sakura nodded again.

Still holding her façade of nervousness, the pink-haired kunoichi reached out and took her "big brother's" hand. His skin, she noted idly, was smooth as porcelain and just as cold; yet there was something comforting about being so close to another person. When was the last time someone had held her hand? Even if it was only pretend, when was the last time someone had offered to protect her?

Sakura told herself she didn't need to be protected. She didn't need it… so why?

_A tool that fails to serve its master is worthless…_

_Why are you so weak?! You can't even protect yourself, Sakura! It's so basic a fucking dog could do it!_

_But Father, I…_

_You are weak because you have no control…worthless…_

_But Itachi-sama, I…_

_You're no daughter of mine! You're a leech, bleeding the name of this family dry. A sightless worm—that's what you are Sakura. You're not even strong enough to be a girl._

_I'm a human being!_

_No. She's a ninja._

_I swore that I would become stronger, I would never stop, never hesitate—but under that… I'm still just a girl. I'm still just human. Sweet little Azami is fake, but… I could have been her._

_I could have been…_

_I still want someone to…_

_I promised to protect you._

Sakura let go of Sasori's hand to wrap her arms around his waist. She buried her face in his ragged shirt, feeling the cold of his skin not even fabric could veil. Distantly, she heard his heart beating.

_I promised to protect you._

"Thank you," Sakura whispered, "_ani-ue_." My brother.

_If only he _could_ be…If only I had never been born a Haruno…_

The brush of Sasori's hand on the top of her head surprised Sakura, and she let go of him immediately, moving back a step to stare up at his face.

Sakura skipped a breath. Sasori's gaze was warm and far-away, young and adoring and staring right through her as if he was seeing someone else entirely.

And then, in less than a second, the look was gone, faded so completely that Sakura wondered if it had really been there at all.

The scorpion's apathetic stare turned away, and dutifully, Sakura followed behind. She did not ask why he had looked through her like that—why he felt so strongly about a simple embrace.

All shinobi kept secrets.

-))—((-

Deidara was bored with the place already. _They call this a village, un?_ There were perhaps twenty wooden buildings in Star, arraigned in a most un-inspired and boxy manner. The only word he could think of to describe it was _quaint_. Well… quaint was the only non-derogatory word he could think of.

Akahoshi left them shortly after they'd reached the edge of the village, claiming he had important business to attend to. All the better, in Deidara's opinion. There was a greasy tang to the leader of the Star village that made the teeth in the blond's palms clench.

Idly, Deidara wound a strand of his unbound hair around a finger. Tighter, tighter… The blood rushed hard to the makeshift tourniquet, dying his skin bloody red—red like usual.

"There is no inn in the village," the Star ninja escort prattled on, "but Ryuusei-san has agreed to let you rest in her home for a few days. You are expected, of course, to be of assistance to…" Deidara tuned their guide out with remarkable ease. Discretely, the blond ninja surveyed the village for escape routes, ambush possibilities, or traps.

With the exception of a bunch of children about Sakura's age running pell-mell down a parallel street, there didn't seem to be much security at all in the village. Hidden Star was clearly more concerned with keeping out foreign ninja than keeping tabs on their own.

Rather quickly, their Star ninja guide stopped in front of a well-maintained wooden house. It was large in comparison to some of the others, but there was no little garden out front or ruffly curtains, which gave Deidara the impression that the woman who had so generously offered them her home was a sharply-trained shinobi. Damn.

The Star ninja moved to knock on the door, which was promptly opened by a stern looking woman. Despite the fact that she was probably old enough to be his grandmother, Deidara knew not to underestimate her.

"The refugees, Ryuusei-san," their escort said.

Ryuusei trained hawk-eyes on the three intruders, taking them in one by one. Finally, she stepped away from the door, brushing iron gray hair behind her ear and motioning for them to remove their shoes as they entered.

Easily, Deidara peeled off his dusty sandals, tossing them casually in the corner, where Sasori and Sakura were neatly arraigning their own footwear. The old woman turned her hard stare from his cluttered shoes to his face, and Deidara forced a sheepish smile.

"Clearly manners were taught in your village." The old woman gestured to Sakura and Sasori, who had bowed politely before they'd even come in the door. "Apparently _your_ parents had some failings."

"Well, I didn't have any parents, un." Deidara's smile looked suddenly strained. "They were killed by a freak explosion… it was very traumatic, un."

Ryuusei pressed her thin lips into a stern line. Finally, she turned away. "That's hardly an excuse."

The blond artist resisted the urge to stick his tongue (any one of them would do) out at her.

"Forgive my…friend." Deidara thought Sasori might actually be choking on that word. "We're all very tired. My name is Uso Hotaru, and my younger sister is Uso Azami. Our irritating companion is Okamoto Taro."

Sakura chimed in with a cheerful, girlish voice, "Thank you so much for letting us stay in your home!"

Rather than saying they were welcome, the old woman offered a "hpmh" and gestured for them to follow her.

As they made an idle circuit of the house, Deidara once again kept his eyes open for traps or bugs that Ryuusei might use to keep watch on them—because they would most certainly be watched. The Hidden Star people were an almost paranoid set, and Deidara had no doubt that their every move would be carefully analyzed.

The blond's attention was so set on searching for hidden ninja equipment and genjutsu that when Ryuusei finally concluded her tour of the home, he nearly ran right into her back. Ironically, Deidara thought, it probably would have helped his non-ninja image if he had.

"Unfortunately," Ryuusei offered in her clipped, stern voice, "I have only two spare bedrooms."

Deidara nearly offered to bunk with Sakura—he rather enjoyed the room they shared together in the hideout. Only their cover story kept him from blurting out the offer. It would probably look bad if "Azami-chan" chose to share a bed with a family friend rather than her brother—Deidara twitched.

Surely Ryuusei wouldn't tell Sakura to share a room with Sasori!

"I think it would be most... prudent if the young lady were to sleep on her own," Ryuusei pressed.

Deidara resisted a momentary sigh of relief. There would have been no telling how Sakura would have reacted to sharing a room with the scorpion, and any wrong look or word could easily blow their cover.

Momentary relief was swept away by nerves. Wouldn't it be normal for a sister and brother to share a room? Was Ryuusei on to their disguise?

"Though it is not, perhaps, the most appealing of situations," the old woman added, "I will fix a futon so that one of you may sleep in the living room…"

Weeks later, Deidara would think back to this moment and cringe. It would not be a little cringe—it would be a "what the _hell_ was I thinking, un?!" cringe. At the moment, however, a particularly wicked idea had just sunk its claws into Deidara's nefariously strange mind.

It was impossible to resist.

"Don't bother with a futon, Granny." Mischief glinted in the cobalt of his visible eye as Deidara took two steps toward his partner and leaned, effectively crossing whatever little personal space Sasori had had left. The Stone ninja lifted one bandaged hand to ghost along the scorpion's throat and teased one finger down the pale line of his partner's suddenly clenched jaw.

Lips near whispering against the scorpion's alabaster cheek, Deidara's almond eye sought their caretaker's shocked face. "Hotaru-danna and I can…. sleep together."

From somewhere behind Sasori, Deidara heard Sakura let out a muffled "Eep!" The blond held back snickers of his own while he imagined what Sakura's reaction to all this looked like. Her face, Deidara thought, was probably burning cherry red right about now.

No matter how surprised Sakura would look, the old Star kunoichi's face was even more priceless. Ryuusei looked like some sort of washed-out cockatoo, all her feathers ruffled completely the wrong way. For a moment, she simply gapped at them, and then, as if remembering her proper upbringing, schooled her expression into something far calmer.

"If…If you insist," the old woman managed at least. "Your… room is down the hall on the left."

"Thanks a ton Granny!" Deidara's grin was curved as a crescent moon. Looping one arm around Sasori's shoulders, the blond artist hauled his partner down the hall.

He distinctly heard Ryuusei muttering something about "New Age couples" as they went.

Sasori was uncooperative as a marionette whose strings had been cut. As the Stone ninja trounced down the hall, Sasori's footsteps were heavy and mechanical. _Oops…_ Deidara thought, _Sasori-danna is pissed off now!_

In almost jerking motion, Sasori shut the door behind them. Wary of the window on the far side of the room, the Sand ninja's face held its vacant stare—but the tone of the scorpion's voice altered dramatically in a matter of seconds.

"Do I even need to ask what the hell that was?"

"Is that a rhetorical question or are you really expecting me to answer, un?" Deidara backed into the room, half to put some space between himself and the disgruntled scorpion, and half to maintain appearances for the ninja that were most certainly spying on them right that moment from outside the window.

Sasori pressed a delicate hand hard against his temple, driving away the start of a non-existent headache. "Do you _ever_ think about things before you do them?"

"Nope, not really, un."

The Sand ninja sighed and threw himself down in the room's only seat, a plush maroon armchair. The motion was one of disbelief and defeat, and Deidara was fairly certain he was out of danger.

"And do you _have_ to attract unwanted scrutiny _wherever_ we go?" the red-headed boy hissed. Out of the hearing range of the Star ninja, all of Sasori's false politeness and cheer had vanished as quickly as smoke in a gale storm. He was back to his perpetual state of grouchiness, to Deidara's vast disappointment. And here the blond had been thinking Sasori's role as someone's caring older brother had (metaphorically) peeled some of the wood layers away from his partner's heart!

"Well," Deidara snickered darkly, "at least now Granny won't dare peep in on us."

For a long a moment, Sasori simply stared at his partner. It was not a contemplating stare or even an amused stare. It was very firmly a "you really are insane, aren't you?" stare.

Deidara turned away from his irritable partner to inspect the room they had been given. It was big enough—bigger than he'd thought it would be, and the soft light from the single window against the dark oak boards of the wall gave it a very… homely feel. There was a thick plush rug under his feet, and Deidara was tempted to take off his shoes just to wiggle his toes in it. Instead, he bounced onto the room's bed, sinking into a thick blue comforter.

"I call this side!" the blond crowed.

"As if I—" But Sasori's words were cut off cleanly by a quiet knock on the door.

Into the dark wood of the door, Sakura whispered, "_Itsuwari...Garasu Ôu_."

Even though he couldn't see it, Deidara almost felt Sakura's genjutsu flood their room, crawling through the wall and filling the window and doorway. Anyone who looked into the room now would see "Hotaru" and "Taro" going about in a perfectly normal (and non-ninja) manner. Any ear against the door would hear ordinary and boring conversation. The genjutsu's only weakness was that it would not work on anyone who _opened_ the door.

As there was no instant reaction from the Star ninja spies outside, Deidara assumed Sakura's illusion had gone unnoticed, in perfect accordance with their plan.

"Aniki, Taro-kun!" Sakura called through the door—and was that laughter or uneasiness in her voice? "Ryuusei-san is making lunch for us!"

Deidara almost yelled back, asking if the food would be poisoned, but Sasori's mahogany eyes were already narrowing in warning, as if he knew exactly what Deidara was planning.

"You have no sense of adventure, un," the blond griped, throwing his hands up in surrender. "You're boring! Borrring!"

"Better boring than poisoned by Granny." Sasori's bone dry chuckle followed Deidara into the hall.

-))—((-

"Ahhh!" Sakura sighed, leaning back in her chair. "I'm so full! Thank you Ryuusei-san."

The older woman offered her something that looked vaguely like a smile, although Sakura thought it could just as easily have been a grimace.

On her left, Deidara muttered something into his rice bowl that sounded distinctly unkind. Sakura elbowed him under the table, pleased when he flinched away and closed his mouth.

"Uh…" Sakura began, lowering her eyes with false anxiousness. "Uh… Ryuusei-san… Would it be okay if I went for a walk? I've never been in a ninja village before… so… I thought…"

"You ought to take an escort," the old woman murmured, thin eyes sharp and staring over the edge of her teacup.

"Oh n-no," Sakura waved her hand in a nervous dismissal. "I wouldn't want to be a burden on anyone!"

"Azami," Sasori faked concern, "you don't know this village. It would be easy to get lost…"

"I promise I won't go into the woods or anything! Please, aniki?" she wheedled in her most saccharine voice.

The act paid off, and the stern old woman grudgingly gave in. Sakura leapt to collect her dishes and dropped them in the kitchen. With Azami's girlish abandon, the pink-haired kunoichi skipped out of the house, calling goodbyes and a promise to be back by dark over her shoulder.

"Don't get lost, ya' little twerp!" Deidara called out as she left.

Sakura decided it wouldn't be worth the scolding she'd get from Ryuusei to turn around and shout something obscene.

Giggling with a childish delight that was surprisingly easy to create, Sakura let her feet lead her. Despite the fact that her walk was actually a planned part of the mission, the girl found herself relaxing at the sound of the chilly winter breeze through the leaves of the nearby forest trees, at the sunlight's warmth contrasting with the cold temperature of the air against her skin.

If she ignored the obvious chakra signal of the Star ninja following her every move, Sakura could almost believe she was on vacation…or something silly like that.

At last, Sakura knew she had to get down to business. As a cute young girl, it would be easier for her to move about the village and pick up information than it would be for the boys. Keeping Deidara's advice in mind ("Be cute Sakura, cute and stupid, un!"), the girl set out to observe the comings and goings of Star ninja in the village.

The chakra-increasing meteorite was supposedly a symbol of the Star village's pride, what each member of Hoshigakure's ninja force trained around. It would be extremely well protected, and if it was being kept in any of the buildings within the village, there would undoubtedly be more activity around that building than any of the others.

By the time Sakura had gone around the village (in different routes, so as not to attract too much notice) three times, she was mentally cursing the entire mission. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the meteorite was not within the confines of the village. The only building that had any noticeable ninja activity was the administration building, where Akahoshi and his minions handled all of Hoshigakure's paperwork. Still, there was no extra guard on the building, and Sakura sincerely doubted the "symbol of the Star village's pride" would be kept tucked away in some ignoble corner.

If they were not keeping it in the village, it most certainly would have to be in the woods somewhere. But she couldn't go hunting around in the forest randomly without looking suspicious. Instead she trained her eyes on the shinobi patrolling the village. Surely they would make rounds to the star, too… It took quite a while, but eventually she noticed the pattern. No matter where the Star ninja entered the village from, each one of their patrol groups left facing southeast.

But that could just be the route, rather than a clear indicator of the star's location, couldn't it?

Huffing, Sakura gave up her attempts at observation and began to search for the nearest place to sit down. Her stitches were itching, and a dull, throbbing pain had started up in her middle.

Sakura backtracked toward the restaurant-type building she had seen early on her walk. She didn't have any money—well, she did, but the Star ninja weren't allowed to know that—still, restaurants were great places to gather information from locals. People with full stomachs and sake cups were much more likely to talk than ninja on patrol.

The moment Sakura entered the restaurant building, she realized something was… off. For the longest minute, the green-eyed kunoichi couldn't quite put her finger on it. But as she surveyed the other patrons, it slowly came to her.

There were only two types of people in the restaurant: those who were quite young, and those who were very old. Of course, there were a few middle-aged men and women (all of whom were wearing Hoshi hitai-ate) scattered about, but on the whole, the age division of the restaurant was extreme.

In fact, it had been the same out on the streets of the village, hadn't it? There had been a good number of children her age, but very few adult men and women. Even the Star ninja who had met them at the border had been a teenager.

Where was the rest of the village?

For a moment Sakura thought that perhaps a large group of Star ninja had been sequestered wherever the meteorite was hidden, and were training there, away from the rest of the village. But in the end, that didn't make any sense… Why would Akahoshi not have called back his best ninja before letting potentially dangerous outsiders into the village? And even more so, none of the houses Sakura had passed seemed empty. Many of them had had people moving just inside their windows, and even those that were vacated showed signs of recent activity.

This discovery unsettled Sakura, and the girl turned around and left the restaurant almost as soon as she had entered it. Sorting a pout onto her face, Sakura rubbed her stomach very lightly. To the Star ninja watching, it probably seemed as if "Azami" had gone inside the restaurant to beg for a free snack and had, summarily, been turned down.

Underneath her façade, determination burned like flame through Sakura's veins.

Though it was risky, some investigation was most certainly in order.

-))—((-

She decided quickly that it wouldn't be safe speaking with any of the adults. Undoubtedly, they would be aware of her status as an outside and the chance that she was an enemy ninja in disguise. Any unordinary question would seem invasive to the older members of the village.

But Azami was a girl—a social girl—and it would make perfect sense for her to seek out children her own age, wouldn't it?

Finding a Star villager her age was almost too easy—she'd turned the corner on to another block of the village and nearly slammed into a tawny-haired girl wearing a Hoshigakure hitai-ate. A genin, most likely. The girl cried out in surprise and leapt back, falling neatly onto her bottom in the dirt road.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Sakura leapt to help the Star girl to her feet, biting back a wince as her stitches tugged with the motion.

"Ah… It's okay." The brown-haired girl mumbled as she brushed herself off. Apparently Sakura had run into a soft-spoken Hoshi ninja. (_The only the one in the whole village_, Sakura snorted to herself.) For a second, the girl's wide grey eyes locked on Sakura's ugly dress and simply stared.

"I'm Aza—" Sakura started to say, but a hand reached out to fiercely tug at the Star ninja girl's arm.

"We don't care who you are," a boy's voice growled.

Sakura's green gaze clashed with the chocolate brown eyes of a taller Star ninja boy. Anger flashed in his gaze as he pulled roughly on his female comrade again.

"Hokuto, don't talk to her—she's an outsider." He spat the last word like venom.

"But… Sumaru… isn't that a little…" Hokuto, as Sakura now knew her, stumbled and tried to defend herself. "I think it would be rude not to talk to her." The girl straightened where she stood, forcing her voice to hold firm. "I heard your village was destroyed." Hokuto had turned soft grey eyes toward Sakura.

Sumaru jerked his glare between them for a moment and then spun on his heel, forest-colored braid whipping out behind him.

"Fine! Betray our village! I'm not talking to any outsiders!" Sumaru shouted over his shoulder as he bound away from them.

"I'm sorry," Hokuto sighed. "Sumaru doesn't trust outsiders… but he has a good reason."

"It's okay. I'm a little afraid of strangers too." And Sakura wasn't lying—when you were a missing-nin, every stranger was a potential executioner. "By the way, I'm Uso Azami. Thank you for talking to me… I was starting to feel really lonely." All right, now she _was_ lying.

"Oh!" The grey-eyed girl pressed a hand to her freckled face. "I'm sorry! I was talking about your village without thinking, and…"

"That's all right." Sakura tried to sort her voice into something that sounded like bravery overcoming sorrow. "My brother and my friend are both alive, so I know that everything will turn out fine."

Hokuto smiled in answer.

Now, Sakura thought, was the moment to begin her investigation. "Why is it that Sumaru hates outsiders so much?" The pink-haired kunoichi hoped her question came off as light and concerned, rather than prying.

Hokuto's grey eyes lowered to the dirt road. "Ten years ago… Sumaru's parents were killed by ninja from another country who came to steal the star."

Sakura was silent and sad-looking for what seemed like a decent amount of time before she cautiously added, "Did a lot of Star shinobi die then?"

Hokuto stared at her for a moment, looking confused. "No, only Sumaru's parents."

Sakura shook her head. "I just noticed that it didn't seem like there were enough adults in the village."

The Star ninja kicked up dust with the toe of one sandal. For a moment, she looked nervous, and her hands toyed idly with the sash of her robe. Finally, she murmured, "Before Sumaru's parents died, a lot of Hidden Star ninja became ill and died too."

"That must have hurt everyone in the village." Sakura kept her voice laced with just enough sympathy.

"Yes, it—"

"Hokuto!" a bossy voice called distantly. The freckle-faced ninja darted her head around, searching for the source of the sound.

"Ah! Mizura!" Hokuto waved her entire arm in greeting to the short, dark-haired boy a ways up the road from them.

"We're supposed to be in the middle of training!" the boy shouted back again, hands on his hips in an obviously scolding posture.

The tawny-hair Star girl flushed red with embarrassment. "I forgot!"

"Hurry up!" Mizura crowed. "Sumaru will tell on you to Akahoshi-sama!"

"Aiee!" Hokuto flailed about in place. "Azami-chan, I have to go, I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"

Sakura resisted the urge to laugh at the girl's antics. Hokuto was a ninja too, but she was… so different. Sakura didn't remember every being as carefree as the Star girl. When it came to training, there was no such thing as forgetting. When it came to strangers, there was no such thing as commiseration.

Hokuto was naïve and careless and everything Sakura's father had never let her be—everything that Itachi had never wanted her to be.

Ninjutsu was the art of deception. They drilled this lesson into every child: _look under the underneath_.

Only the weak were _deceived_. This, beyond all else, Itachi had carved into her body.

"You're so cute, Hokuto-chan." The only place the words sounded condescending was in Sakura's head.

"Hehh?" The girl blinked wide grey eyes.

"Before you go," Sakura smile might as well have been tainted with sugar, "could you tell where the village's graveyard is? I… feel like I should say a prayer for Sumaru-kun's parents."

Trusting as a kitten, the grey-eyed girl happily gave directions. "It'll probably be Suisei, okay? That's Sumaru's last name!" Hokuto called as raced off to join her comrade.

She could feel the difference between them—between a loyal genin and a missing-nin—ringing in her ears, in the echo of her footsteps as she left the village behind and entered the woods, following a thistle-lined path to the Hidden Star burial grounds.

She could _taste_ the difference.

Hokuto swallowed half-truths like they'd been brought to her on a silver platter.

Sakura had lies bred into her bones.

-))—((-

_"A lot of Hidden Star ninja became ill and died."_

Nothing was adding up to Sakura. How could a large number of ninja just up and die from illness? Hidden Star was supposedly allied with Konoha—it would have been easy for them to get any medicine necessary to cut the disease short. And why did only the _ninja_ get sick? Shinobi had exceptionally well-kept bodies; a normal illness would have struck the weaker forms of Hidden Star's children and elderly before ever affecting any of the village's active ninja...

Sakura realized she had reached the burial grounds only after she had walked almost halfway through it. It was not the traditional stone monument type of graveyard, but something older—more human. Delicately carved and painted grave markers, made of fine, dark wood decorated a forest hollow in neat rows.

Cold winter sunlight streamed down through the broken canopy, a mirage of green and gold spotlights resting over the ashes (_a shinobi's secrets are written on her body…a single shard of bone can tell her story…_) that used to be people.

In the ankle high grass, Sakura's footsteps made no sound. Beneath her fingers the smooth polished wood of the grave markers slid like water—or blood, she thought—a line of ingrained characters that told only half a story.

_13__th__ of May, 14__th__ of May, 17__th__ of May_… She followed the even row of graves across the hollow, tracing death dates with increasing confusion. Thirty dead ninja over the course of a month. Even if it were an incredibly fast attacking disease, it would need time to spread, time to grow, and time to kill its victims. What had the Star ninja been exposed to, that they had all died almost simultaneously? What sort of illness targeted only active ninja? How had it gotten to such an isolated village—and why had the outbreak only struck once?

Sakura turned everything she knew over in her head like pieces of a blank jigsaw puzzle with no edge to work from, a set of pieces that just refused to fit together. She didn't know where the meteorite was, she didn't know where the Star ninja were training, she didn't know why they had died.

But somehow, she was sure, it all came down to the star.

Even more pressing than that idea however, was that she could not find a grave marker for Sumaru's parents.

The pink-haired kunoichi wound her way carefully through every row, inspecting and re-inspecting each of the names on the grave markers. There was no Suisei. Unless Hokuto had been lying about Sumaru's last name, there was no grave marker for two loyal shinobi who had died in the service of their village.

The very idea itself was pointless—ninja villages were nothing if not proud and sacrificial.

After a long while, Sakura gave up searching and moved to rest against the trunk of a nearby tree. This mission was supposed to be simple: get in, find rock, grab rock, get out. Instead of finding the information she needed, the green-eyed girl was just raising more and more questions.

Afternoon light, turning slowly orange-red, danced cool on her face as Sakura stared up at the slender hole in the canopy above. A radiant white star floated in the flushed, far-away sky.

_Why are you keeping so many secrets, Hidden Star?_

As if in answer, something glinted gray and gold through the trees on the other side of the burial hollow. For a moment, Sakura's ninja instincts nearly took a hold. It was only when her hand dipped to her thigh and found no weapons pouch that she remembered exactly where she was—and who she was pretending to be.

Her second thought was that the glint had come from the Star ninja who had been inexpertly following her all day. Undoubtedly they were watching her even at this moment, wondering exactly why she had taken such an interest in their dead. But that thought too was shoved aside, because even though they were mediocre shinobi by Sakura's standards, the Star ninja tailing her weren't _so_ mediocre as to be seen.

Feeling much like a cat about to be done in by curiosity, the pink-haired kunoichi wandered (carelessly, so as not seem as invested as she really was) across the hollow. Parting a few low juniper branches, Sakura gasped.

Alone in a sculptured lull of the forest stood an obsidian monument marred by the words _Sandaime Hoshikage_. And a death date—a recent death date.

Sakura backed out of the copse, withdrawn from the forest graveyard around her. Green eyes stared sightlessly through the gold-dyed wood. Just what the hell was going on in Hidden Star?

The third Hoshikage had died only two months ago.

_Was that a sudden sickness too?_ The words echoed cold and sarcastic, and suddenly Akahoshi's glass marble eyes flashed through her mind. Who precisely had decided he would be the Hoshikage's successor?

Power, Sakura knew, could be a deadly motivation.

But… _Ugh!_ she growled to herself. _This just adds another mystery to this stupid village!_

Sakura did not even stop to question why she wanted answers so badly or why she was so sure all these mysteries were tied up with the rock they had been sent to gather. Leaving things half-finished was not something Itachi had ever done. It was not something she had ever willingly done. (And then, there in the dark corners of her mind was that voice whispering:_ Kimimaro is still alive, worthless girl…_) In the end, it didn't matter if these questions had anything to do with their mission in Hoshigakure—she had _decided_ to know, and Sakura never went back on a single decision.

_You are weak because you have no control. The only thing that will be useful to you is hate. You will use that hate to become stronger under my guidance… Can you do that?_

_Yes._

There was only one place left to search for the answers she now desperately desired--the Hoshikage's seat of power: Hidden Star's administration building. What records was Akahoshi keeping from his village?

There would be death records there, reports on the training with the meteor…

Only the last flares of cold sunlight through the forest kept her from going to stake out the administration building immediately. Little Azami _had_ promised to be back by nightfall after all. Sakura hadn't found the star yet, and so there could certainly be no execution of their mission tonight; she would have plenty of time to try and snoop around tomorrow.

Right now, however, she needed to get back to whatever bland meal Ryuusei was cooking for dinner, and back to her comrades. Deidara was probably bored out of his mind, and a bored Deidara never boded well for anyone.

Sakura hoped the house was still standing.

-))—((-

The house _was_ still standing when she reached it, although Sakura strongly suspected that was because Deidara had gotten _so_ bored he had given up on the world in general and was catnapping (all over his borrowed bed, like some sort of demented boy-blanket… or octopus…) by the time she got back.

Mahogany eyes flicked up from where their owner sat in the room's plush armchair, and just as quickly returned to the book perched in the scorpion's lap.

Deidara twitched a little in his sleep, like a dog dreaming about chasing rabbits.

The opportunity for revenge was irresistible.

Sasori's pale lips almost broke into a smile as Sakura whispered across the floor, leaned over the blond with slow and secretive movements… and then lifted her elbow and slammed it down right into Deidara's stomach.

"WAAAAAHH!"

"And that's for calling me a twerp before I left." Sakura snickered.

Sasori pulled his hands away from his ears only when he was sure the last echoes of Deidara's glass-shattering scream had faded away. "Idiot," the scorpion murmured, acting completely oblivious to Sakura's elbow-attack, "don't just scream randomly."

"What?! But—" Deidara glared venomously between both of them, rubbing his abused stomach . "You two are evil, un. Fucking evi—"

His words were cut off instantly when Ryuusei slammed the bedroom door open, the crows' feet around her hooded eyes wrinkled in suspicion.

"I heard screaming," she snapped.

"Uh… ummm…" Sakura stumbled. A sudden bolt of fear shot from her head to the arches of her feet. Her stupid joke on Deidara hadn't just blown their cover, had it? The ninja outside the window would not have seen or heard anything with her genjutsu in their way, but Ryuusei…

"I had a nightmare," Deidara offered quickly, "about… the day our village was attacked, un. It was very traumatic."

"A lot of things seem to be traumatic for you… Taro-kun," Ryuusei drawled. But she seemed to have accepted his explanation at least a little, because the old Star ninja turned and wandered back into the hall, leaving them with the information that dinner would be ready in an hour.

Deidara stuck out his tongue when he was certain Ryuusei was gone. "Your _face_ is traumatic, Granny."

"Oh, very mature," Sasori muttered over the edge of _War and Peace_, the book he had undoubtedly borrowed from Ryuusei some time during Sakura's tour of the village.

"You're just sticking up for her 'cause under all that pretty, you're as old as she is, un!" Deidara grinned like a crescent moon. "Maybe I should call you Granp—"

A massive book streaked across the room, gave Deidara a very nasty papercut under his eye, and became _lodged_ in the solid wood wall next to the blond's head. Sakura was impressed—_War and Peace_ was not your average mother's kunai.

"Well it's a good thing there's a genjutsu on the window, because nothing screams _ninja_ like trying to kill your comrades," Sakura sighed.

"Sakura," Sasori's voice was even more quiet and usual, and Sakura knew immediately what he was going to ask. "Did you notice anything… interesting in the village?"

Sakura ran a hand over the dull rise of stitches in her middle. It was fast becoming a nervous habit. "I didn't find the star. They aren't keeping it anywhere in the village."

"Yeah, I didn't think it would be that easy." Deidara griped, poking unhappily at the red line of papercut on his cheek.

"I did notice that the squads of shinobi who appeared to be on guard rounds all left the village in the same direction—southeast." Sakura turned that bit of information over in her head again, wondering if it would really help them locate the meteorite. Shoving one of Deidara's legs out of the way, she plopped down on the end of the squishy bed.

"But I did find out something else really interesting. Up until two months ago, this village was ruled by the third Hoshikage, whose name most definitely wasn't Akahoshi. Sandaime Hoshikage didn't just leave his seat--he left this life."

Deidara let out a low whistle.

"And the Hoshikage's was just one in a long line of mysterious deaths. About ten years ago, thirty of Hidden Star's ninja up and died of illness."

"Thirty?" Sasori's brow furrowed. "That's a huge number for such a tiny village."

"I thought so too."

"You know," Deidara muttered as he jabbed Sakura's leg with his toes, not really expecting her to move, "you two are making way too big a deal out of this, un. Who cares if the Hoshikage and a whole bunch of people kicked the bucket?" His voice lowered another notch. "We're just here to snag the rock, un."

"Well tomorrow I'm going to—"

Sasori cut her off. "Tonight Deidara and I will find the meteorite. If there is an opportunity to remove it, we will. We will send a messenger to you with changes in the plan if it becomes necessary. Be prepared to leave the village at any moment."

Sakura bit down on her tongue to stop from protesting. It felt like an eternity since the last time she had been given a direct _order_. Without Itachi training her, Sakura had really just tagged along with everyone else's orders… Like the cool press of a kunai, it came back to her suddenly that Sasori was her superior. When he looked like a fragile young man, it was altogether too easy to forget that he wasn't Uso Hotaru, that he was bloodless, cold-hearted, the same monstrous creature that crawled across the ground, haunted the shadows of a nation's nightmares.

"All right, ani-ue," Sakura said firmly, not quite sure herself why the honorific slipped into her agreement.

From somewhere down the hall, Ryuusei's stern voice called out that dinner was ready. Deidara started complaining about poison not a moment after the call was issued, but he was still the first person out the bedroom door. Sasori had the sense to pull _War and Peace_ out of the wall before he too left the room.

-))—((-

"Okay, remember the timing Sakura-chan!" Deidara pressed again.

Night had fallen, cold and misty, over the village. The silver rays of a half-moon spilled over the ground and through the windows of Ryuusei's house. Everywhere, dark shadows sprung up in sharp contrast to the light.

"I got it, I got it." Sakura waved away the blond artist's last insistences about her genjutsu. "Just hurry up and go find the rock."

This stage of the plan was by no means simple, and involved more transformations than Sakura really wanted to think about. While she toyed with the genjutsu on the boys' room, Sasori and Deidara had to get outside without being suspected by either Ryuusei or any of the Star ninja outside the house. Beyond that, they could not, at any moment, let the Hoshi ninja feel their chakra. Inside the genjutsu, using chakra would have been fine. But outside? It would take incredible amounts of concentration to keep from being noticed.

Sakura didn't doubt her Akatsuki companions. Well, maybe she doubted Deidara a little…

"Why do I have to be the trash bag, un?" the blond was whining.

"Because the old woman hates you," Sasori stabbed in reply.

The plan was to have polite Hotaru offer to take Ryuusei's trash out, in a show of gratitude for allowing them to stay with her. A henge'd Deidara, in the form of a trash bag, would get scooped up and dragged outside too. From there, some clever use of Bunshin and Kawarimi would leave a clone of Sasori to re-enter the house. The Star ninja spies outside, looking into Sakura's genjutsu, would see Sasori come into the room and carry on like normal with Deidara, leaving both the real Akatsuki free to comb the woods outside the village. The only possible danger to their plans would be if Ryuusei suspected a Bunshin, or tried to enter Sasori and Deidara's room.

Then it would all be up to Sakura's genjutsu. The pink-haired kunoichi silently prayed that the old woman wasn't a genjutsu-user herself. Nothing spoiled a plan like having your illusions dispelled.

All too soon, the boys had disappeared from the room. Distantly, Sakura heard the front door of the house open and then close. Waiting with only a hint of anxiety, the girl left Deidara and Sasori's room and slid into her own borrowed room.

A low bed, decked with deep purple blankets, was pushed up against the far wall, just under the room's thin window. The oak floorboards under her feet were cold as ice and just as smooth and, ignoring the delicate sumi-e paintings adorning the walls, Sakura slid across the floor and dropped gingerly onto the bed. Her hand found the knotted wood of the wall, tender tips of her fingers slipping into the grain of what was once a proud tree. Through the wood she could feel her genjutsu, warm and beating softly like butterfly's wings through the house.

The front door opened and closed again, and Sakura heard Ryuusei's muffled "thank you" and then the light footsteps of Sasori's clone. Down the hall, the other bedroom door snapped shut with a click. At precisely that moment, Sakura's hand on her wall sent a ripple through the genjutsu. Like oil over water, the genjutsu separated, filling the room from ceiling to floor. Now if Ryuusei were to look into their room, she too would see the images Sakura wished her to see.

Face flushing red, Sakura remembered that morning. It was _really_ unlikely that Ryuusei would want to peek on the boys after Deidara's little… show. Ehh, why did she have to remember that?! The way he had touched… the way he had sounded…

"No, no, no!" Sakura shook her head furiously to drive out the sudden memory of—

…_his breath, warm against her naked collarbone…_

…_his ankles tangled with hers beneath their cool sheets…_

…_the black that rimmed cobalt-dust eyes…_

…_the press of lips—his hand—against her cheek…_

…_the dark drawl of his voice in her ears…_

…_Come play a game with me, Sakura…_

"Eeeeeh!!" Sakura buried her face in her pillow and wailed. _What am I thinking?!_ _I barely know Deidara-kun! _Except that she felt like she'd known him forever. _And… and… He's one of my comrades! _Except she wasn't good enough. _He's…_

Lying alone in bed for the first time she remembered in weeks, the only thing Sakura could think was: _He's warm_.

In her dream—

_Deidara was smiling. It was not his usual killer's grin, but something softer, at once more inviting; the hint of bone white teeth under barely-parted lips drew her gaze though he hardly meant to. _

_It was dark: dark like their room beneath the earth when Sakura lay awake and thinking about someone above her, Deidara breathing slowly in the black at her side._

_They were lying on a lake. On, not in, and pale pink strands of her hair spread dry against the lake's surface. The sound of water lapping distantly at a shore she could not see blended in with the words Deidara murmured along her throat._

_She couldn't understand him. Each tiny wave breaking on the far-off beach changed the way she felt. One moment it was enough to feel him there, the next she…_

_It didn't really matter what she felt, because feeling never changed anything, did it? _

_Clumsy in the dark, he ran a hand through her hair and brushed her forehead, the touch as soft as bird feathers against the pale line of her temple, the shield of her eyelids, the valley of her lips._

Open your eyes.

_She did. And on the far-off shore a scarlet moon was rising, dying the whole world garnet. In place of stars, the sky above flickered with ravens._

_Deidara was standing, senbon glinting bloody in the reflection of the water. He was screaming at the sky except that all she could hear was—_

Open your eyes.

_Deidara threw the needle in his hand, clean and fast and desperate. It sunk into a raven's chest, raining blood and feathers that curled like smoke in the air and grew and grew until…_

_His undone cloak billowed like black and red wings, a raven king descending on the crimson surface of the lake. Sharingan spun the world on its side._

"_Itachi-sama…" _

_And there in her ear like the tolling of a midnight bell:_

I would rather be with you.

"_I—" The lake suddenly pressed hands over her mouth, her chest, her legs, tendrils of dark water dragging her in and down and under…_

Who would you rather be with?

_And under…_

_She screamed and tore against the water that beat on her skin like veins on the outside. Couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't reach—_

_She slipped beneath the surface of the lake slowly, watching the red moon waver over her head, one hand stretching up to grasp—_

_Deidara was there; she couldn't hear him, but his lips kept saying come back, come back, come back…_

_If she could only reach—who? _

_Deidara was there. Itachi was… Feeling never changed anything, did it? _

_Distant as the moon, the murder of ravens; distant as he always had been._

Is this how you will empty your heart?

_Deidara was there._

By giving it to someone else?

_She couldn't breathe, couldn't say what she wanted, couldn't move from this far-away place…_

_It was no different from every day of her life, when she could reach out and touch Itachi but touch nothing at all. Her feelings couldn't cross the distance between them, because he did not want feelings and she wanted everything he wanted._

_And now she could not even stand beside him as his—tool? Comrade?_

_Tears she refused to shed prickled in the corner of her eyes, as needles and raven's blood followed her to the depths of the lake._

_Deidara's hand was still so close… if she moved, she could…_

_Why did it feel like she was doing something terrible?_

Open your eyes.

She did. The smooth wooden walls of Ryuusei's home shone blue in the light from the moon—white, white—through the window. It must have been well past midnight. A dull _skritch_-ing sound pressed into her ears. It was coming from the door—no, under.

Something was crawling through the crack under the door. For a moment Sakura thought it was a cockroach or something equally offensive. But then it wormed itself free and scuttled madly toward her, and Sakura relaxed. Well, she sort of relaxed. It was not that easy to be comfortable around Deidara's clay spiders, as the little insects had a habit of self-destructing.

Sakura held back a shudder when the arachnid scaled her leg and body and rolled itself into her hand. She could only sense the barest of chakra from it; not enough for a _boom_ at least, so it seemed safe enough.

For a moment the spider was still, and then it convulsed once. Quite suddenly, its back split open down the middle, revealing a dark hollow. A thin bit of paper was folded up and lying inside. Feeling only a little revolted, Sakura reached into the spider and picked it out.

Unfolding it by the pale moonlight, Sakura immediately picked out Deidara's angular handwriting, but not the code he was using. It took a few minutes of puzzled staring before she realized the character system and could decipher the message.

Found rock. By "coincidence," bastard village leader holding meeting here. On to us? Hoping they'll leave.

Don't wait up for me.

He'd drawn a lopsided little figure next to the last word, a dastardly smirk on its inky face.

It was a joke, and she knew it. Any other day she would have laughed. Today—

_Who would _you_ rather be with?_

She forced the note back into the spider, dropped the wriggling creature on the floor and crushed it under her foot. It popped and sizzled against her heel, stinging the skin.

Sakura ground the ashy remains of the arachnid and his words into the floorboards, and then fell back into her bed.

She_ wouldn't _wait up for him.

_Is this how you will empty your heart?_

-))—((-

Sakura's arms and legs trembled as she struggled to keep her grip—on the ceiling. If last night had stopped weighing on her mind, her head would have been filled with a cacophony of complaints and whining about how in the world she'd gotten herself into this mess. As it stood, a numb sort of chill had settled along her spine, not quite ice but not comfortable either.

What had she been doing? Itachi's request had been clear. He had told her to stay away from Deidara, and she had just… ignored him.

She had betrayed him.

The ninja on patrol passed below her and rounded a corner. The stitches in Sakura's middle strained and stabbed in protest, but she couldn't risk using even the barest amount of chakra to support herself. Sakura held her place—between two rafters—for another minute and then dropped soundlessly to the wooden floor below. Pressed against the white-washed wall, the pink-haired kunoichi slipped like a shadow down the outer hall of Hidden Star's administration building.

_"Good morning Azami-chan!" Deidara's voice from the doorway, oblivious to—how she never jumped, never felt the shinobi instinct to lash out in surprise. No defenses around him. When had she made the mistake of putting her trust in Deidara?_

_"Good morning Taro-_san_."_

_He noticed, froze, stared in blank confusion. "Are you all right, un?"_

_"I wasn't," she said, after a long moment, and her voice carried through the room like air or cyanide. _

_Beneath her bare feet, the dark floorboards were cold with early morning and clay ashes._

Sakura pressed her hand to a doorframe beside her head, searching for any sense of chakra within the room beyond the door. There was nothing. Stilling her breath, the green-eyed kunoichi listened. No shuffling of papers within, no scratching of pens… Easing the sliding door open the barest crack, impossibly slow, Sakura took one last look both directions down the hall.

Turning to press an eye to the doorframe, Sakura observed the room as best she could. There was no one inside. Quick as a dart, she slipped in, sliding the door shut behind her.

It wasn't the room she wanted.

_"We're going to stake out the rock again, un." Safe within their room and its genjutsu, Deidara laid out their plans for the day. Blue eyes stared sharply at her. "You stay here and—"_

_"No." It felt wrong to stand against him. "I want to know why so many Star ninja died. I'm going to go look at the village's records. I wouldn't be of use to you in a battle anyway."_

_Sasori's half-lidded gaze over the edge of _War and Peace _was heavy and disapproving. It was how an older, wiser brother would look down on an impertinent younger sibling. Sakura rejected the idea as soon as it formed. _

_"Well fine." Deidara's eyes were cobalt slits, suspicious of her sudden change in behavior and liking it even less. "I'm not coming back to save your sorry ass if we steal the rock and you get left behind."_

_Sakura only nodded, tried not to think that Itachi wouldn't come back for her either._

The room she had entered was a storage for the village's ninja supplies. Kunai and shuriken in baskets covered the floor, and in a tall glass-case along the wall, polished hitai-ate waited for academy hopefuls. Sakura was almost tempted to snatch one and _henge_ herself into someone non-threatening, like Hokuto. But the ninja around the administration building would be on alert from the slightest bloom of foreign chakra—which left her to do her "sneaking in" in the rather old-fashion way.

A conjoining shouji door across the storage room led to more equipment and things Sakura assumed were Hidden Star valuables. Folded neatly on a pedestal in one of the corners was a purple and white kage robe. The sight of the empty robe only fueled Sakura's curiosity, and she passed into the next room with as much haste as safety permitted.

_Bingo,_ Sakura smiled. The vast room she had entered now contained reams and reams of scrolls, bound and labeled and neatly arranged. Slender hands ran along the curved backs of the scrolls until they reached a delicate, black character—_hoshi_.

Sakura pried the parchment from its place on the shelf and looked it over carefully. It was incredibly thick, probably dating back decades, if the softly frayed edges of the paper were anything to go by. She did not open it. A scroll containing secrets this vital to the village would not be unprotected.

Sure enough, a tiny square of darkness at the bottom of the paper hummed with malicious chakra. If she had opened the scroll, the entire administration building would have gone out with a _bang_ only Deidara could have appreciated.

Sakura pulled back from the shelf and settled herself gingerly on the tatami floor. With incredible care, she inspected the scroll for ways to disarm it. One wrong touch or prod of chakra could spell the end.

At last, she found the point where the tangled stream of chakra protecting the scroll began. It was strong but not impossible—if she risked a dispelling jutsu, she'd probably be able to break the protection.

But to use a jutsu under the Hidden Star leader's nose? For a long moment Sakura stared at the scroll, trying to make up her mind. There _was_ a chance her jutsu would go completely unnoticed…

Finally, her desire to know won out. In the dusty stillness of the records room, Sakura's soft "_Kai_" echoed—quietly as a pin dropping. She held her breath, waiting for the sounds of pounding footsteps or shouting voices coming in her direction. There was no noise at all, and after a minute, Sakura managed an almost silent sigh of relief.

Searching the scroll again, she found that her dispelling jutsu had done the trick, clearing the malevolent defenses away. With careful fingers, Sakura peeled the edge of the scroll open and began to read.

She quickly moved on from the beginning, which dated back some two hundred years ago, kept by the first Hoshikage. What interested her was what had happened in the last decade—which, of course, to be completely inconvenient, was much farther on in the scroll. Cautiously, Sakura unrolled the paper further.

_Four of the jounin completing the star training collapsed this morning. Their conditions appear to be similar to that of Koguma and Tokei. Fevers, loss of consciousness, difficulty breathing and moving are the first apparent symptoms, becoming far worse over time. At first we suspected poison, but none of the medic ninja can find toxins within the ill. Training continues, but unease has settled over the ninja..._

The next paragraph was uneven, the mark an anxious writer.

_There is something terribly wrong with the star. It is the symbol of our village—the pride of all our ninja. I fear to bear this ill news… Yet Tenbin and Jyougi, both jounin, have already died. As each day passes, more and more of the training group shows signs of illness. I do not wish to believe that the star that gave us our name could now be taking our lives._

_The entire training group has succumbed to illness with the exception of Suisei Hotarubi and his wife, Natsuhi. They alone remain healthy, while their comrades waste and die. Counting the Suisei, only three jounin from the training group remain. I fear it will not belong before that number is cut again. I am hesitant to act—Suisei is pushing for an end to the training, while my apprentice Akahoshi maintains that we are nothing without the special chakra the star gives to us…_

_Suisei Hotarubi and Natsuhi have been exiled from the Hidden Star village for attempting to steal our nation's most precious treasure. Though they committed an unforgivable crime, I feel as if I can understand their reasoning. If our ninja continue to train around the star, I believe they too will face death. Are Hotarubi and Natsuhi to be remembered as criminals, or saviors?_

Everything was falling into place as she read. The consecutive death dates, the reason Sumaru's parents did not have grave markers, even Akahoshi's motivations… Green eyes darted on across the scroll.

_As of today, all training with the star has been permanently prohibited. No amount of strength is worth the lives that have been lost. Our village's treasure is now only that—a shard of our pride that must never be forgotten, but must also be treated with the cautious reverence that double-edged swords are shown. Let these records be a warning to those who will follow me, for the sake not only of our noble village, but—_

The cold steel of a kunai pressed hard against her throat.

"So," Akahoshi's oily voice slithered into her ears, "the flowering thistle shows herself to be a weed."

Sakura cursed herself for falling so deeply into reading that she failed to notice the Star ninjas' approach.

There were two others with Akahoshi, she concluded, though turning her head was almost impossible. The one holding the knife against her was bald and broad-shouldered. Easily twice her height, Sakura was fairly certain he'd be more brawn than brains. It was the other two she was concerned with. Akahoshi's second lackey was slender as a rat and just as dirty. The smirk on his face was reviling—though a shade less terrible than the grin that cracked Akahoshi's corpse-like face.

She couldn't take them all together. If she had been in perfect health, she might have had a chance to damage them and escape… but as it stood, her wounds would limit her harshly in battle. It didn't matter how many jutsu she could throw at them if her body wouldn't bend enough to dodge a shuriken. She had to find a way to even the scale, and she had to find it now, because Sasori and Deidara weren't about to burst in and rescue her. They were…

"Would you like to know where my comrades are right now?" Sakura smirked, ignoring the searing of the kunai in her skin with each syllable.

She felt the Star ninja on either side of her stiffen. "Yes, that's right. They're probably making off with your precious star as you stand here."

The bulky minion scoffed. "The star is well defended! There's no way a bunch of trash like you could get—"

"Trash?" Sakura used the opening her shocking words had left to move away from the knife at her throat. Languidly, she slid to her feet. "Trash?"

All of the Hoshi-nin jerked into offensive stance as they felt the sudden flare of Sakura's chakra. But she was not forming destructive jutsu—no, she had done something that was, perhaps, even more terrifying.

"_Henge_."

Azami's tan dress bled black and scarlet, lengthening and billowing in a wind all its own. White-rimmed clouds dashed across the cloth like a midnight sky, and Sakura felt _right_ for the first time since she had failed Itachi.

It felt even more right when Akahoshi's sallow face turned ashen.

"Oh… So this—" Sakura mused as she plucked idly at one sleeve of the Akatsuki cloak, "—means something to you?" She could see his jaw clenching tight as a vice.

Her lips lifted a feral smile. "You've let the black plague into your village, Akahoshi-_sama_."

"Did you have a plan? Frame the poor outsiders? Say you valiantly defeated us as we tried to make off with the star? Then you'd have an excuse to take full control of this village—and reinstate the training, like you've wanted to since the day you killed the third Hoshikage."

"H-How did you know that?" the rat-like minion stumbled back a step.

"You just told me."

The man jerked, greasy black hair whipping as he looked nervously between Akahoshi's silent form and Sakura's narrow-eyed smile.

"What will you do now that those poor outsiders pose a _real _threat to your plan?" the pink-haired kunoichi prodded. "You can stay and fight me, or you can scuttle off and _maybe_ save your precious star."

Akahoshi hissed, navy eyes nearly bursting from his face. He spun suddenly on his heel and slammed open the shouji door. The sound of his lightning-fast footsteps did nothing to drown out the words he left behind to his minions:

"Kill her."

_Well_, Sakura thought as her toes slid along the tatami and she sank into an offensive posture, _two grown men against one wounded girl seems fair to me._ But the thoughts she chose to acknowledge were far more optimistic than her body was telling her to be. One good blow to her stomach could undue a week's worth of healing, easily. Chakra-enforced running was one thing; punching, dodging, and kicking were different matters entirely.

Deidara had insisted that Kakuzu's stitches would hold—Sakura just hoped that her skin would too.

The Star ninja before her lifted their hands and pressed fingers into identical seals. "Kujaku Myouhou!" they shouted as one, and instantly twin flares of brilliant violet and blue chakra blazed in the room. Sakura shifted back on instinct, shocked by the visibility and bizarreness of their chakra.

The flames pooled at their backs and flared upward, forming the rays of fanned peacocks' tails. Sakura tensed, live as electrical wire. For the barest of seconds, their chakra remained feathery, and then the Star ninja's handseals flashed again.

"Zan!"

Violet chakra burst forth from their backs and shot toward her in hundreds of blade-sharp tentacles.

"Shit!" Sakura dove under the first volley and threw herself into a roll as the tentacles of chakra bent at ninety degrees to follow her to the floor. Biting back a gasp of pain as her wound strained, Sakura reached for her thigh pouch and cursed again when she realized she wasn't wearing it. Useless little Azami didn't carry kunai. There had to be something—

The chakra, fast as speeding senbon, tore toward her again. At the last second, Sakura shifted, and violet tentacles slammed into the shelves of scrolls at her back. The parchment clattered to the floor and flooded around her feet.

A ready-made arsenal.

Praying all the scrolls in the records room were valuable enough to be rigged, Sakura snatched a red bound scroll, ripped it open, and hurled it.

Immediately the protective jutsu on the paper _cracked_. Lightning shot through the room, charring shouji and making all of Sakura's hair stand on end. Both Star ninja jerked back, momentarily losing control of their slicing chakra.

The moment was not long enough. Even as Sakura tore open another scroll—this one screeched like a dying woman and burst into tiny shadows that coated and bit at the ground and walls like thirsty leeches—the two Star ninja were ready. Violet chakra batted the leech-shadows aside and then came after her again, like wolves on the sent of a rabbit.

_Dammit! _Sakura leapt again and was forced to cut the motion short when all the muscles of her abdomen clenched and screamed under the abuse. She crashed to the floor on one knee and a violet tentacle grazed her arm; blood sprayed from the shallow cut. _If this keeps up, I won't have time to form a decent jutsu!_

…But there was time to form a simple—

"Bunshin no jutsu!" A clone burst into being instantly, standing firm over Sakura.

The rat-man brayed. "What's that supposed to do? We know which one is the real you!"

The clone leapt for the pair, fist taut and ready to destroy. Instantly the Star ninjas' violet tentacles retracted and shot out again, slamming through the clone and exploding it in a cloud of smoke—exactly what Sakura had wanted. Ignoring the feeling of flesh burning, she tore up from the floor and buried herself in the smoke left behind the Bunshin.

"What the hell!?"

In the dusty cover, Sakura's hands flashed through a series of seals. "_Doton! Kurodoro no kuchi!_" Chakra blazed through her feet as she slammed onto the floor again, and Sakura felt the momentary rush that came from using her natural chakra element.

The tatami and wood floor split open and dark earth swallowed one of the Star ninja whole. Above his startled face, the mouth of earth closed its fangs and began to sink back into the ground again. The dirt was grainy and porous; there was a good chance the Star ninja would survive.

_Shame_, Sakura thought.

She rounded on the second Star ninja—the rat—but he was ready, and the blow she had aimed to his face was knocked aside by a whip of the violet-blue chakra. It stung where it touched her skin, and she jerked back, a hand automatically clenching at her middle to try and drive away the fierce pounding of her wound. Her hand was bloody when she looked down.

And then the sharpened violet chakra came slamming down upon her. Sakura spun desperately on her heel—and then shrieked as it raked across her stomach, tearing open the black and red cloak and searing over Kakuzu's stitches.

She collapsed, for only a moment, and then forced herself back to her feet. Her legs trembled beneath her and breathes came ragged and fast. Sheer agony pounded in every vein of her body. The transformation jutsu on her clothing flickered and died, turning her proud cloak back into the drab and tattered tan dress.

Rat-man sneered. "Is that really all you can do?"

His gloating gave her a desperately needed opening. "_Katon!_" Sakura shouted, "_Housenka no jutsu!_"

She coughed a rapid burst of fireballs that hit their mark and blazed—into nothing? Violet-blue chakra flared around the Star ninja, shielding him from the fiery onslaught.

He cackled. "Now do you see the incredible power of Hoshigakure? This special chakra is taken from the star! It's strong enough to deflect anything—metal, flesh, or jutsu!"

She was really starting to hate this freaking village.

The rat-man suddenly flashed through another hand seal and cried "_Chakra no nawa_!" Unsure what to expect, Sakura dodged left, and was instantly constricted by thick bands of the _kujaku_ chakra. Straining against it, she found it impossible to budge her arms.

"Don't bother!" the Star ninja taunted. "That chakra rope is impossible to cut!" His hands clenched together in a crushing motion, and Sakura felt the burning rope tighten, tighten, crush the air from her lungs, crush—the _Hoshi_ scroll.

"Kawarimi!?" the rat hissed… but it was too late. The chakra ropes tightened their final bite and tore the sacred history of Hoshigakure's meteorite in two.

And then Sakura, running on adrenaline alone, pushed under the Star ninja's peacock defense, pulled her entire, screaming body back, and slammed her fist into his nose.

He hit the floor and did not get up. Sakura didn't think he'd be getting up for a long while.

She slumped to her knees, surveying the room-turned-battlefield with eyes that fluttered in and out of focus. The floor was gone, thrown apart by earth jutsu and splicing chakra, and everywhere shadows and scorch marks littered the walls. Scrolls by the hundreds rolled idly across the uneven ground.

There was blood all over her dress. Gingerly Sakura leaned back against a half-destroyed shelf and widened the tear in the fabric across her middle. She forced herself to look and… laughed.

Kakuzu's stitches had held. But nothing else had.

On either side and in the even row of dark thread, her skin had split again: three bloody tally marks from her last rib to her navel. The split was deep and raw; she could see muscle contracting under the blood.

Sakura fought the urge to throw up by standing. There was no way in hell she was going to be left behind in this freakin' village. Not for a poisonous rock. She stumbled at first, and then forced herself to steady.

It was with even steps that she walked over the tatters of Hidden Star's secrets.

-))—((-

Sakura was running by the time she reached the wood line, though where the strength to run had come from, she didn't know. Desperation maybe.

Deidara had not told her where the star was being kept—her only clue was the Southeast pattern of the guards and the distant, far-away hum that might have been the blond ninja's destructive clay.

Trees and stones flashed past at a rate Sakura could not understand, because she could not even feel her legs moving beneath her.

Suddenly the solid earth dropped away into an enormous carter. Carters, she thought a little dizzily, were usually where one could find meteorites. Skidding to a halt, Sakura jerked her blurry gaze from left to right.

There! Sasori's brilliant ginger hair flickered into view on the other side of the carter. He was—along with a large, horned puppet—locked in battle with Akahoshi and Akahoshi's—_aw, hell_—violet-blue chakra.

The Star leader's chakra had morphed into an enormous flaming beast that towered over both of them, but not over Deidara, who flew over the battlefield on the back of an enormous eagle, tossing down bombs behind Akahoshi as distraction.

The fucking rock was so not worth this.

"Deidara!" she shouted, choking back sudden warmth in her mouth. "Deidara!" She waved one whole arm limply, well-aware that his keen eyes would find her.

Within seconds, the eagle flapped twice and sped across the crater, swooping down. Deidara's hand reached out and snatched her, pulling her up on to the clay bird's cool back. Sakura bit down a whimper of pain that the blond's less than careful retrieval methods had caused.

"What the hell happened to you, un?"

"We should retreat!" she coughed out. "It's not worth it!"

"Uh… the mission is not worth it?" Deidara stared at her as if she'd grown a second pair of arms.

"No, I mean the rock is not worth it!" she gasped for air and nearly heaved as pain shot through her. The adrenaline was fading. "The rock's poisonous! It's killed almost everyone who trained with it!"

"Wonderful," Deidara growled. He stomped on the bird, which instantly dropped from the sky the like the stone it was, leveling out just over Sasori and the Star leader's fight. "Are you telling me, after all the crap we went through, I have to give this ugly rock back?"

"Give it back?!" she hacked. "You have it?"

"Yeah, duh." The Iwa-nin looked mildly upset that she had doubted him.

"Then why are you still fighting with Akahoshi?!" Sakura slammed her fists against the bird's clay body in frustration and agony, desperate to forget the pain on her stomach, even if it meant breaking a few fingers.

"Well, he kinda wants it back, un. He whomped me with that rabid chakra badger of his the first time we tried to fly off. So we thought we'd just kill him and be done with it, un."

Sakura felt dizzy, blood loss catching up with her fast as the chemicals in her veins died down. "Give him the evil rock back and get me out of this village before I die in a place with as tacky a name as _Hidden Star_!"

"Agreed, un. It is tacky." But Deidara plucked the rock out of his baggy peasant shirt and waved it tauntingly down to the Star leader. "Is this what you're looking for, un?"

Before Akahoshi's beast could leap, Deidara stretched back his arm and hurled the rock as far to the other side of the crater as he could manage. In the lull of attacks, Sasori leapt clear onto the back of Deidara's bird, a rattling wooden puppet dangling behind.

"What the hell did you just do?!" the scorpion hissed, mahogany eyes wide and angry.

"Relax!" Deidara waved his hands pleadingly. "Sakura-chan says the rock's no good. It kills people, un."

The fire faded some Sasori so quickly she could hardly believe it was ever there. He blinked slowly, once and then again. "Those thirty ninja?"

"Yes," Sakura managed—but that was all she managed.

-))—((-

"_Oi, Sakura-chan!"_ Through the ringing in her ears she could hear Deidara's voice. Concern and something she thought might have been care were coloring it, and it sounded softer when she could barely understand it. _"Open your eyes!"_

She did, and found a canopy of green and gold and cobalt as Deidara's face hovered half-over her own.

She didn't want him there, because it had always been Itachi picking her out of the ashes of her battles, and that was the way it should have always been.

The forest was quiet; she wondered how far they were from Hoshigakure. The creaking of a wooden joint drew her eyes to Sasori, already tucked away inside Hiruko again. There was a sharp and disapproving look in the puppet's beady eyes.

"Sakura-chan, focus, un!" Deidara snapped his fingers in her ear. "You look like somebody tried to eat you for dinner. What the hell happened, un?"

"They…" her stomach heaved again as she took in the air to speak, "…found me in the records room."

Deidara was quiet for a moment before his face split into a malicious grin. "And what condition are they in right now, un?"

"One's six feet under," she groaned out, "and the other…has had… his nose relocated to the back of his skull."

"That's my girl!"

Sakura flinched. _Not your girl. Always, always, Ita—_

It crashed through her like a wave, hurricane winds, like flash fire. It hummed in every drop of blood left in her veins and stilled her heart for longer than a single beat.

Itachi's chakra.

Sakura struggled to sit up, to keep herself from being seen so weak again… Deidara had stiffened, cold and unmoving as stone.

The air behind the blond shimmered, darkened, bent and filled suddenly with a shadowy projection of her master, blood-red Sharingan the only hint of reality to the hologram.

"I-Itachi-sama?" If this was a jutsu of his, she had never seen it before. But it was most certainly his chakra…

"Kisame and I have been dispatched for a mission to Kirigakure," the cool, low voice she would know anywhere spoke from the shadowy form. "Sakura will accompany us."

_Sakura will accompany us…_ Except when it rang in head all she heard was her name, over and over again. _Sakura, Sakura, Sakura_ from his lips, when she had been so sure he would never look at her again.

She had failed him—and he still wanted her.

"Of course, Itachi-sama," she breathed, at the same moment Deidara leapt to his feet.

_Deidara was standing, senbon glinting bloody in the reflection of the water. He was screaming at the sky except that all she could hear was—_

"What the hell are you thinking?!" Deidara jerked a hand back toward her. "Are you fucking blind? She's bleeding to death!"

The astral projection of her master blinked once, a cold and evaluating look narrowing his gaze.

"She can't go on another mission, un—it'll kill her! Is that what you want, Uchiha?!" Cobalt met crimson fearlessly. "I **won't** let you destroy her."

"She is mine to destroy." It was fact and nothing more, neither malicious nor remorseful. Even from where she lay, Sakura could see the Sharingan spinning.

"You _bas_—"

"Where should I…" she coughed and it was warm again in her mouth, "meet you?"

"Sakura-chan…" Deidara turned to stare at her, horror and something like betrayal flickering in his eye before he could hide it away. "You can't!"

But she could. It was an order and she would be by his side again and then maybe she could reach him and…

"We'll rendezvous fifty-seven miles south of your current location," the hologram intoned. "We will be leaving by tomorrow morning."

If Sakura had been healthy, fifty-seven miles would have taken her half a day at most. Like this… she nervously fingered the tear in her dress.

No. She could make it. She could.

"I'll be there." It hurt to breathe.

"Sakura-chan!" Deidara looked torn between rage and fear. His shocking blue stare bored into her, trying to understand why she would even think about going.

With shaking arms and legs that threatened to give out beneath her, Sakura made it to her feet. "I'll be there."

The illusion of her master nodded once and then shimmered out of existence, leaving no trace of its presence except the desperate pounding of her heart.

If she left now, she could reach him.

Sakura stumbled as she took a step, and for a moment, the whole world spun. But then everything righted itself, the southward trees of the forest jumped into startlingly clear view; her entire body ached to close the distance between them. She coughed and the warmth in her mouth spilled over, a river of blood that gathered in the valley of her lips.

Deidara's hand locked around her arm, over the cut she'd been left with. What stung most was that he was holding her back.

"Why the hell would you go?!" All gentleness gone, his voice was like poison and flame. She wretched her arm out of his grasp, stumbled to keep her balance.

Deidara was all the fury of an explosion in the night, _but his lips kept saying come back, come back, come back… _"Are you willing to give up your life for _him_?!"

Sakura turned away.

"Itachi-sama is my life." She bled.

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**A Note on Names**

_Brought to you by Sarehptar_

In this chapter, our three lovely antagonists infiltrate Hoshigakure under a set of rather interesting aliases. **Sasori**, which means "Scorpion" in Japanese, finds himself renamed **Hotaru**, which means "Firefly". Most people associate scorpions with death, violence, or pain—on the contrary, fireflies are gentle, sweet, and even a bit romantic. While Sasori is rough and unapproachable, his assumed-personality Hotaru has all the inviting traits of a calm and lovable firefly.

**Sakura** also undergoes an interesting change. Her original name refers to cherry blossoms, a time-honored symbol of Japan and, to some, the most beautiful and delicate flower in the world. Her false name is **Azami**, which means "thistle". In most parts of the world, thistles are regarded as noxious weeds. To drop from the height of "most beautiful flower" to "weed" goes along well with her false personality. While Sakura herself is strong, vivacious and clear-headed, Azami acts like a silly young girl, with completely unassuming looks and strength.

While both Sasori and Sakura lower themselves to blend in, Deidara's false name is actually a reference to the amazing depth Kishimoto puts into his characters. **Deidara** is a reference to the mythological "Deidarabocchi", a Japanese giant responsible for creating mountains—but most of Deidara's _art_ seems to have been inspired by the famous Japanese mod-sculptor **Okamoto Taro**. (Do a Google image search.) So, in this chapter, Deidara's original source gets some credit, by becoming an alias!

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**Official ****The Tortured**** Art Contest**

_Brought to you by Serenity Komoshiro_

Sareh has been bugging me to try this for a while, so I'm finally getting down to it. We've decided to open up an official fanart contest to all our readers!

Here's the deal: draw a scene from The Tortured—any scene—or make up a Tortured scene of your own (do try to keep it PG-13). Feel free to be creative and to use any medium! Once you're done with your drawing, e-mail it to me (my e-mail is on display in my profile), or upload it to your DevArt account and just e-mail me a link!

The contest closes at the end of February, so that people will have plenty of time to enter. Sareh and I will get together and pick the first, second, and third place winners, who will receive a special prize—

(Drumroll please…)

**Cameos in an upcoming The Tortured chapter**! Ever wanted to be a mad shuriken-slinging ninja, going toe-to-toe with the Akatsuki? Ever wanted to kunai Sasuke in the back so bad you could taste it? …Well, we can't promise that, but we can promise you a pretty fun part!

Give it a shot, even if you don't think you're good at art—you never know how well you might do!

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**Serenity and Sareh say: **Thank you all so, so, so very much for all the support! Your reviews are really the only things that keep us going some days. We especially want to thank those of you who said you would be patient with us, and all of you who have stuck with us over the _YEARS_ now. We hope that you will continue to review. Please, **if you have this story on your favorites or alert list, leave us a review**—tell us WHY you added it to your favorites in the first place! For this chapter, our goal is to break 332 reviews. (Don't ask why, it's completely random number…) Help feed Sareh's feedback obsession by reviewing!


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